P2- 
 
 _t3 
 
 CJnrnfU ICaui ^rlyonl library 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PZ 3.T76T8 
 
 3 1924 024 906 756 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024906756 
 
" I wonder, Mr. Tutt, if you would be willing to take a criminal case 
 
 where there wouldn't be any prospect of a fee, simply to 
 
 prevent a possible miscarriage of justice ? " 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PACE 
 
 The Human Element i 
 
 Mock Hen and Mock Turtle 43 
 
 Samuel and Delilah 89 
 
 The Dog Andrew 126 
 
 Toggery Bill 164 
 
 Wile Versus Guile .-,...... 202 
 
 The Hepplewhite T&amp 234 
 
 Lallapaloosa Lijjited 273 
 
 The Hand is Quicker than the Eye .... 308 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "I wonder, Mr. Tutt, if you would be willing to 
 take a criminal case where there wouldn't be 
 any prospect of a fee, simply to prevent a possi- 
 ble miscarriage of justice" .... Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PACE 
 
 "I have indeed! . . . That is, if it is what you call 
 a case for a man to promise to marry a woman 
 and then . . . refuse to do so" .... 112 
 
 "I always said if I ever was in trouble you'd be the 
 
 one to whom I should go to help me out" . . 21$ 
 
 "I shall tell this miserable cheating rogue . . . 
 either to pay you a hundred thousand dollars 
 or go to hell" 304 
 
TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 THE HUMAN ELEMENT 
 
 Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, 
 they are not so often the result of great design as of chance. 
 
 — La Rochefoucauld. 
 
 "He says he killed him, and that's all there is about 
 it!" said Tutt to Mr. Tutt. "What are you going to 
 do with a fellow like that?" The junior partner of 
 the celebrated firm of Tutt & Tutt, attorneys and 
 counselors at law, thrust his hands deep into the pock- 
 ets of his yellow checked breeches and, balancing him- 
 self upon the heels of his patent-leather boots, gazed 
 in a distressed, respectfully inquiring manner at his 
 distinguished associate. 
 
 "Yes," he repeated plaintively. "He don't make any 
 bones about it at all. 'Sure, I killed him!' says he. 
 
 'And I'd kill him again, the !' I prefer not to 
 
 quote his exact language. I've just come fr6m the 
 Tombs and had quite a talk with Serafino in the 
 counsel room, with a gum-chewing keeper sitting in 
 the comer watching me for fear I'd slip his prisoner 
 a saw file or a shotgun or a barrel of poison. I'm all 
 in ! These murder cases drive me to drink, Mr. Tutt. 
 I don't mind grand larceny, forgery, assault or even 
 
2 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 manslaughter — but murder gets my goat ! And when 
 you have a crazy Italian for a cliait who says he's 
 glad he did it and would like to do it again — ^please 
 excuse me ! It isn't law ; it's suicide 1" 
 
 He drew out a silk handkerchief ornamented with 
 the colors of the Allies, and wiped his forehead de- 
 spairingly. 
 
 "Oh," remarked Mr. Tutt with entire good nature. 
 "He's glad he did it and he's quite willing to be 
 hanged 1" 
 
 "That's it in a nutshell!" replied Tutt. 
 
 The senior partner of Tutt & Tutt ran his bony 
 fingers through the lank gray locks over his left eye 
 and tilted ceilingward the stogy between his thin li^s. 
 Then he leaned back in his antique swivel chair, locked 
 his hands behind his head, elevated his long legs lux- 
 uriously, and crossed his feet upon the fourth volume 
 of the American and English Encyclopedia of Law, 
 which lay open upon the desk at Champerty and Main- 
 tenance. Even in this inelegant and relaxed posture 
 he somehow managed to maintain the air of pictur- 
 esque dignity which always made his tall, ungainly 
 figure noticeable in any courtroom. Indubitably Mr. 
 Ephraim Tutt suggested a past generation, the sugges- 
 tion being accentuated by a slight pedantry of diction 
 a trifle out of character with the rushing age in which 
 he saw fit to practise his time-honored profession. 
 ''Cheer up, Tutt," said he, pushing a box of stogies 
 toward his partner with the toe of his congress boot. 
 "Have a weed?" 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 3 
 
 Since in the office of Tutt & Tutt such an invitation, 
 like those of royalty, was equivalent to a command, 
 Tutt acquiesced. 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Tutt," said Tutt, looking about 
 vaguely for a match. 
 
 "That conscienceless brat of a Willie steals 'em all," 
 growled Mr. Tutt. "Ring the bell." 
 
 Tutt obeyed. He was a short, brisk little man with 
 a pronounced abdominal convexity, and he maintained 
 toward his superior, though but a few years his junior, 
 a mingled attitude of awe, admiration and affection 
 such as a dickey bird might adopt toward a distin- 
 guished owl. 
 
 This attitude was shared by the entire office force. 
 Inside the ground glass of the outer door Ephraim 
 Tutt was king. To Tutt the opinion of Mr. Tutt upon 
 any subject whatsoever was law, even if the courts 
 might have held to the contrary. To Tutt he was the 
 eternal fount of wisdom, culture and morality. Yet 
 until Mr. Tutt had finally elucidated his views Tutt 
 did not hesitate to hold conditional if temporary opin- 
 ions of his own. Briefly their relations were symbol- 
 ized by the circumstance that while Tutt always ad- 
 dressed his senior partner as "Mr. Tutt," the latter 
 accosted him simply as "Tutt." In a word there was 
 only one Mr. Tutt in the firm of Tutt & Tutt. 
 
 But so far as that went there was only one Tutt. 
 On the theory that a lily cannot be painted, the es- 
 tate of one seemingly was as dignified as that of the 
 Other. At any rate there never was and never had been 
 
4 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 any confusion or ambiguity arising out of the matter 
 since the day, twenty years before, when Tutt had 
 visited Mr. Tutt's law office in search of employment. 
 Mr. Tutt was just rising into fame as a police-court 
 lawyer, Tutt had only recently been admitted to the 
 bar, having abandoned his native city of Bangor, 
 Maine, for the metropolis. 
 
 "And may I ask why you should come to me ?" Mr. 
 Tutt had demanded severely from behind the stogy, 
 which even at that early date had been as much a 
 part of his facial anatomy as his long ruminative nose. 
 "Why the devil should you come to me? I ajn no- 
 body, sir — ^nobody! In this great city certainly there 
 are thousands far more qualified than I to further your 
 professional and financial advancement." 
 
 "Because," answered the inspired Tutt with mod- 
 esty, "I feel that with you I should be associated with 
 a good name." 
 
 That had settled the matter. They bore no rela- 
 tionship to one another, but they were the only Tutts 
 in the city and there seemed to be a certain propriety 
 in their hanging together. Neither had regretted it 
 for a moment, and as the years passed they became in- 
 dispensable to each other. They were the necessary 
 component parts of a harmonious legal whole. Mr. 
 Tutt was the brains and the voice, while Tutt was the 
 eyes and legs of a combination that at intervals — rare 
 ones, it must be confessed — made the law tremble, 
 sometimes in fear and more often with joy. 
 
 At first, speaking figuratively, Tutt merely carried 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT S 
 
 Mr, Tutt's bag — rode on his coat tails, as it were ; but 
 as time went on his activity, ingenuity and industry 
 made him indispensable and led to a junior partner- 
 ship. Tutt prepared the cases for Mr. Tutt to try. 
 Both were well versed in the law if they were not pro- 
 found lawyers, but as the origin of the firm was 
 humble, their practise was of a miscellaneous char- 
 acter. 
 
 "Never turn down a case," was Tutt's motto. 
 
 "Our duty as sworn officers of the judicial branch 
 of the Government renders it incumbent upon us to 
 perform whatever services our clients' exigencies de- 
 mand," was Mr. Tutt's way of putting it. 
 
 In the end it amounted to exactly the same thing. 
 As a result, in addition to their own clientele, other 
 members of the bar who found themselves encumbered 
 with matters which for one reason or another they 
 preferred not to handle formed the habit of turning 
 them over to Tutt & Tutt. A never-ending stream 
 of peculiar cases flowed through the office, each leav- 
 ing behind it some residuum of golden dust, however 
 small. The stately or, as an unkind observer might 
 have put it, the ramshackly form of the senior partner 
 was a constant figure in all the courts, from that of 
 the coroner on the one hand to the ap^pellate tribunals 
 upon the other. It was immaterial to him what the 
 case was about — ^whether it dealt with the "next even- 
 tual estate" or the damages for a dog bite — so long as 
 he was paid and Tutt prepared it. Hence Tutt & Tutt 
 prospered. And as the law, like any other profession, 
 
6 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 requires jacks-of-all-trades, the firm acquired a certain 
 peculiar professional standing of its own, and enjoyed 
 the good will of the bar as a whole. 
 
 They had the reputation of being sound lawyers if 
 not overafflicted with a sense of professional dignity, 
 whose word was better than their bond, yet who, faith- 
 ful to their clients' interests, knew no mercy and gave 
 no quarter. They took and pressed cases which other 
 lawyers dared not touch lest they should be defiled- — 
 and nobody seemed to think any the less of them for 
 so doing. They raised points that made the refine- 
 ments of the ancient schoolmen seem blunt in compari- 
 son. No respecters of persons, they harried the rich 
 and taunted the powerful, and would have as soon 
 jailed a bishop or a judge as a pickpocket if he de- 
 served it. Between them they knew more kinds of law 
 than most of their professional brethren, and as Mf. 
 Tutt was a bookworm and a seeker after legal and 
 other lore their dusty old library was full of hidden 
 treasures, which on frequent occasions were unearthed 
 to entertain the jury or delight the bench. They were 
 loyal friends, fearsome enemies, high chargers, and 
 maintained their unique position in spite of the fact 
 that at one time or another they had run close to the 
 shadowy line which divides the ethical from that which 
 is not. Yet Mr. Tutt had brought disbarment proceed- 
 ings against many lawyers in his time and — what is 
 more — ^had them disbarred. 
 
 "Leave old Tutt alone," was held sage advice, and 
 when other lawyers desired to entertain the judiciary 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 7 
 
 they were apt to invite Mr. Tutt to be of the party. 
 And Tutt gloried in the glories of Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "That's it !" repeated Tutt as he lit his stogy, which 
 flared up like a burning bush, the cub of a Willie hav- 
 ing foraged successfully in the outer office for a match. 
 "He's willing to be hanged or damned or anytiaing else 
 just for the sake of putting a bullet through the other 
 fellow!" 
 
 "What was the name of the unfortunate deceased?" 
 
 "Tomasso Crocedoro — a barber." 
 
 "That is almost a defense in itself," mused Mr. Tutt. 
 "Anyhow, if I've got to defend Angelo for shooting 
 Tomasso you might as well give me a short scenario 
 of the melodrama. By the way, are we retained or 
 assigned by the court?" 
 
 "Assigned," chirped Tutt, 
 
 "So that all we'll get out of it is about enough to 
 keep me in stogies for a couple of months !" 
 
 "And — if he's convicted, as of course he will be — 
 a good chance of losing our reputation as successful 
 trial counsel. Why not beg off?" 
 
 "Let me hear the story first," answered Mr. Tutt. 
 "Angelo sounds like a good sport. I have a mild affec- 
 tion for him already." 
 
 He reached into a lower compartment of his desk 
 and lifted out a tumbler and a bottle of malt extract, 
 which he placed carefully at his elbow. Then he leaned 
 back again expectantly. 
 
 "It is a simple and naive story," began Tutt, seating 
 himself in the chair reserved for paying clients — that 
 
8 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 is to say, one which did not have the two front legs 
 Sawed off an inch or so in order to make lingering un- 
 comfortable. "A plain, unvarnished tale. Our client 
 is one who makes an honest living by blacking shoes 
 near the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. He is one 
 of several hundred original Tonys who conduct shoe- 
 shining emporiums." 
 
 "Emporia," corrected his partner, pouring out a 
 tumbler of malt extract. 
 
 "He formed an attachment for a certain young 
 lady," went on Tutt, undisturbed, "who had previously 
 had some sort of love affair with Crocedoro, as a re- 
 sult of which her social standing had become slightly 
 impaired. In a word Tomasso jilted her. Angelo 
 saw, pitied and loved her, took her for better or for 
 worse, and married her." 
 
 "For which," interjected Mr, Tutt, "he is entitled 
 to everyone's respect." 
 
 "Quite so!" agreed Tutt. "Now Tomasso, though 
 not willing to marry the girl himself, seems to have 
 resented the idea of having anyone else do so, and 
 accordingly seized every opportunity which presented 
 itself to twit Angelo about the matter." 
 
 "Dog in the manger, so to speak," nodded Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "He not only jeered at Angelo for marrying Rosa- 
 lina but he began to hang about his discarded mistress 
 again and scoff at her choice of a husband. But Rosa- 
 lina gave him the cold shoulder, with the result that 
 he became more and more insulting to Angelo. Finally 
 one day our client made up his mind not to stand it 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 9 
 
 any longer, secured a revolver, sought out Tomasso 
 in his barber shop and put a bullet through his head. 
 Now however much you may sympathize with Angelo 
 as a man and a husband, there isn't the slightest doubt 
 that he killed Tomasso with every kind of deliberation 
 and premeditation." / 
 
 "If the case is as you say," replied Mr. Tutt, replac- 
 ing the bottle and tumbler within the lower drawer and 
 flicking a stogy ash from his waistcoat, "the honor- 
 able justice who handed it to us is no friend of ours.'' 
 
 "He isn't," assented' his partner. "It was Babson, 
 and he hates Italians. Moreover, he stated in open 
 court that he proposed to try the case himself next 
 Monday and that we must be ready without fail." 
 
 "So Babson did that to us!" growled Mr. Tutt. 
 "Just like him. He'll pack the jury and charge our 
 innocent Angelo into the middle of hades." 
 
 "And O'Brien is the assistant district attorney in 
 charge of the prosecution," mildly added Tutt. "But 
 what can we do? We're assigned, we've got a guilty 
 client, and we've got to defend him." 
 
 "Have you set Bonnie Doon looking up witnesses?" 
 asked Mr. Tutt. "I thought I saw him outside dur- 
 ing the forenoon." 
 
 "Yes," replied Tutt. "But Bonnie says it's the 
 toughest case he ever had to handle in which to find 
 any witnesses for the defense. There aren't any. 
 Besides, the girl bought the gun and gave it to Angelo 
 the same day." 
 
10 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "How do you know that?" demanded Mr. Tutt, 
 frowning. 
 
 "Because she told me so herself," said Tutt. "She's 
 outside if you want to see her." 
 
 "I might as well give her what you call 'the once 
 over,' " replied the senior partner. 
 
 Tutt retired and presently returned half leading, half 
 pushing a shrinking young Italian woman, shabbily 
 dressed but with the features of one of Raphael's ma- 
 donnas. She wore no hat and her hands and finger 
 nails were far from clean, but from the folds of her 
 black shawl her neck rose like a column of slightly dis- 
 colored Carrara marble, upon which her head with 
 its coils of heavy hair was poised with the grace of 
 a sulky empress. 
 
 "Come in, my child, and sit down," said Mr. Tutt 
 kindly. "No, not in that one; in that one." He in- 
 dicated the chair previously occupied by his junior. 
 "You can leave us, Tutt. I want to talk to this young 
 lady alone." 
 
 The girl sat sullenly with averted face, showing in 
 her attitude her instinctive feeling that all officers of 
 the law, no matter upon which side they were sup- 
 posed to be, were one and all engaged in a mysterious 
 conspiracy of which she and her unfortunate Angelb 
 were the victims. A few words from the old lawyer 
 and she began to feel more confidence, however. No 
 one, in fact, could help but realize at first glance Mr. 
 Tutt's warmth of heart. The lines of his sunketl 
 cheeks if left to themselves automatically tended to 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT ii 
 
 draw together into a whimsical smile, and it required 
 a positive act of will upon his part to adopt the stern 
 and relentless look with which he was wont to glower 
 down upon some unfortunate witness in cross-exami- 
 nation. 
 
 Inside Mr. Tutt was a benign and rather mellow 
 old fellow, with a dry sense of humor and a very keen 
 knowledge of his fellow men. He made a good deal 
 of money, but not having any wife or child upon 
 which to lavish it he spent it all either on books or 
 surreptitiously in quixotic gifts to friends or strangers 
 whom he either secretly admired or whom he believed 
 to be in need of money. There were vague traditions 
 in the office of presents of bizarre and quite impossible 
 clothes made to office boys and stenographers; of ex- 
 convicts reoutfitted and sent rejoicing to foreign parts; 
 of tramps gorged to repletion and then pumped dry 
 of their adventures in Mr. Tutt's comfortable, dingy 
 old library; of a fur coat suddenly clapped upon the 
 rounded shoulders of old Scraggs, the antiquated 
 scrivener in the accountant's cage in the outer office, 
 whose alcoholic career, his employer alleged, was 
 marked by a trail of empty rum kegs, each one flying 
 the white flag of surrender. 
 
 And yet old Ephraim Tutt could on occasion be 
 cold as chiseled steel, and as hard. Any appeal from 
 a child, a woman or an outcast always met with his 
 ready response; but for the rich, successful, and those 
 in power he seemed to entertain a deep and enduring 
 grudge. He would burn the midnight oil with equal 
 
12 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 zest to block a crooked deal on the part of a wealthy 
 corporation or to devise a means to extricate some no 
 less crooked rascal from the clutches of the law, pro- 
 vided that the rascal seemed the victim of hard luck, 
 inheritance or environment. His weather-beaten con- 
 science was as elastic as his heart. Indeed when under 
 the expansive influence of a suflicient quantity of malt 
 extract or ancient brandy from the cellaret on his 
 library desk he had sometimes been heard to enunciate 
 the theory that there was very little difference between 
 the people in jail and those who were not. .; 
 
 He would work weeks without compensatioii. tp 
 argue the case of some guilty rogue before the Court 
 of Appeals, in order, as he said, to "settle the law," 
 when his only real object was to get the miserable fet 
 low out of jail and send him back to his wife and chil- 
 dren. He went through life with a twinkling eye and 
 a quizzical smile, and when he did wrong he did, it— 
 if such a thing be possible^ — in a way to make peopfe 
 better. He was a dangerous adversary and judges 
 were afraid of him, not because he ever tricked or de- 
 ceived them but because of the audacity and novelty 
 of his arguments, which left them speechless, ffe 
 had the assurance that usually comes with age and 
 with a lifelong knowledge of human nature, yet ap- 
 parently he had always been possessed of it. 
 
 Once a judge having assigned him to look out for 
 the interests of a lawyefless prisoner suggested that 
 he take his new client into the adjoining jury room 
 and give him the best advice he could. Mr. Tutt was 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 13 
 
 gone so long that the judge became weary, and to find 
 out what had become of him sent an officer, who 
 found the lawyer reading a newspaper beside an open 
 window, but no sign of the prisoner. In great excite- 
 ment the officer reported the situation to the judge, 
 who ordered Mr. Tutt to the bar. 
 
 "What has become of the prisoner?" demanded His 
 Honor. 
 
 "I do not know," replied the lawyer calmly. "The 
 window was open and I suspect that he used it as a 
 means of exit." 
 
 "Are you not aware that you are a party to an 
 escape — a, crime?" hotly challenged the judge. 
 
 "I most respectfully deny the charge," returned Mr. 
 TutL 
 
 "I told you to take the prisoner into that room and 
 give him the best advice you could." 
 
 "I did !" interjected the lawyer. 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed the judge. "You admit it! What 
 advice did you give him?" 
 
 "The law does not permit me to state tfiat," an- 
 swered Mr. Tutt in his most dignified tones. "That is 
 a privileged communication from the inviolate obliga- 
 tion to preserve which only my client can release me 
 — I cannot betray a sacred trust. Yet I might quote 
 Cervantes and remind Your Honor that 'Fortune leaves 
 -always some door open to come at a remedy!' " 
 
 Now as he gazed at the tear-stained cheeks of the 
 girl-wife whose husband had committed murder in de- 
 fense of her self-respect, he vowed that so far as he 
 
14 TUTT AND MR. fUTT 
 
 was able he would fight to save him. The more des- 
 perate the case the more desperate her need of him — 
 the greater the duty and the greater his honor if suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 "Believe that I am your friend, my dear!" he as- 
 sured her. "You and I must wgrk together to set 
 Angelo free." 
 
 "It's no use," she returned less defiantly. "He done 
 it. He won't deny it." 
 
 "But he is entitled to his defense," urged Mr. Tutt 
 quietly. 
 
 "He won't make no defense." 
 
 "We must make one for him." 
 
 "There ain't none. He just went and killed him." 
 
 Mr. Tutt shrugged his shoulders. , 
 
 "There is always a defense," he answered with con- 
 viction. "Anyhow we can't let him be convicted with- 
 out making an effort. Will they be able to prove where 
 he got the pistol?" 
 
 "He didn't get the pistol," retorted the girl with a 
 glint in her black eyes. "I got it. I'd ha' shot him 
 myself if he hadn't. I said I was goin' to, but he 
 wouldn't let me." 
 
 "Dear, dear!" sighed Mr. Tutt. "What a case! 
 Both of you trying to see which could get hanged 
 first!" 
 
 The inevitable day of Angelo's trial came. Upon 
 the bench the Honorable Mr. Justice Babson glowered 
 down upon the cowering defendant flanked by his dis- 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 1$ 
 
 tinguished counsel, Tutt &; Tutt, and upon the two 
 hundred good and true talesmen who, "all other busi- 
 ness laid aside," had been dragged from the comfort 
 of their homes and the important affairs of their vari- 
 ous livelihoods to pass upon the merits of the issue 
 duly joined between The People of the State of New 
 York and Angelo Serafino, charged with murder. 
 
 One by one as his name was called each took his 
 seat in the witness chair upon the voir dire and per- 
 jured himself like a gentleman in order to escape from 
 service, shyly confessing to an ineradicable prejudice 
 against the entire Italian race and this defendant in 
 particular, and to an antipathy against capital punish- 
 ment which, so each unhesitatingly averred, would 
 render him utterly incapable of satisfactorily perform- 
 ing his functions if selected as a juryman. Hardly 
 one, however, but was routed by the Machiavellian 
 Babson. Hardly one, however ingenious his excuse — 
 whether about to be married or immediately to become 
 a father, whether engaged in a business deal involving 
 millions which required his instant and personal at- 
 tention, whether in the last stages of illness or obli- 
 gated to be present at the bedside of a dying wife — ^but 
 was browbeaten into helplessness and ordered back to 
 take his place amidst the waiting throng of recalci- 
 trant citizens so disinclined to do their part in ele- 
 vating that system of trial by jury the failure of which 
 at other times they so loudly condemned. 
 
 This trifling preliminary having been concluded, the 
 few jurymen who had managed to wriggle through the 
 
i6 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 judicial sieve were allowed to withdraw, the balance 
 of the calendar was adjourned, those spectators who 
 were standing up were ordered to sit down and those 
 already sitting down were ordered to sit somewhere 
 else, the prisoners in the rear of the room were sent 
 back to the Tombs to await their fate upon some later 
 day, the reporters gathered rapaciously about the table 
 just behind the defendant, a corpulent Ganymede in 
 the person of an aged court officer bore tremblingly 
 an opaque glass of yellow drinking water to the bench, 
 O'Brien the prosecutor blew his nost with a fanfare 
 of trumpets, Mr. Tutt smiled an ingratiating smile 
 which seemed to clasp the whole world to his bosom — ' 
 and the real battle commenced ; a game in which every 
 card in the pack had been stacked against the prisoner 
 by an unscrupulous pair of officials whose only aim 
 was to maintain their record of convictions of "murder 
 in the first" and who laid their plans with ingenuity and 
 carried them out with skill and enthusiasm to habitual 
 success. 
 
 They were a grand little pair of convictors, were 
 Babson and O'Brien, and woe unto that man who 
 was brought before them. It was even alleged by the 
 impious that when Babson was in doubt what to do 
 or what O'Brien wanted him to do the latter com- 
 municated the information to his conspirator upon the 
 bench by a system of preconcerted signals. But indeed 
 no such system was necessary, for the judge's part in 
 the drama was merely to sustain his colleague's ob- 
 jection* and overrule those of his opponent, after 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 17 
 
 which he himself delivered the coup de grace with un- 
 erring insight and accuracy. When Babson got 
 through charging a jury the latter had always in fact 
 been instructed in brutal and sneering tones to convict 
 the defendant or forever after to regard themselves as 
 disloyal citizens, oath violators and outcasts; though 
 the stenographic record of his remarks would have led 
 the reader thereof to suppose that this same judge was 
 a conscientious, tender-hearted, merciful lover of hu- 
 manity, whose sensitive soul quivered at the mere 
 thought of a prison cell, and who meticulously sought 
 to surround the defendant with every protection the 
 law could interpose against the imputation of guilt. 
 
 He was, as Tutt put it, "a dangerous old cuss." 
 O'Brien was even worse. He was a bull-necked, bullet- 
 headed, pugnosed young ruffian with beery eyes, who 
 had an insatiable ambition and a still greater conceit, 
 but who had devised a blundering, innocent, helpless 
 way of conducting himself before a jury that deceived 
 them into believing that his inexperience required their 
 help and his disinterestedness their loyal support. Both 
 of them were apparently fair-minded, honest public 
 servants; both in reality were subtly disingenuous to 
 a degree beyond ordinary comprehension, for years of 
 practise had made them sensitive to every whimsy of 
 emotion and taught them how to play upon the psy- 
 chology of the jury as the careless zephyr softly draws 
 its melody from the aeolian harp. In a word they were 
 a precious pair of crooks, who for their own petty self- 
 
i8 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 ish ends played fast and loose with liberty, life and 
 death. 
 
 Both of them hated Mr. Tutt, who had more than 
 once made them ridiculous before the jury and shown 
 them up before the Court of Appeals, and the old 
 lawyer recognized well the fact that these two legal 
 wolves were in revenge planning to tear him and his 
 helpless client to pieces, having first deliberately se- 
 lected him as a victim and assigned him to officiate at 
 a ceremony which, however just so far as its con- 
 summation might be concerned, was nothing less in its 
 conduct than judicial murder. Now they were laugh- 
 ing at him in their sleeves, for Mr. Tutt enjoyed the 
 reputation of never having defended a client who had 
 been convicted of murder, and that spotless reputation 
 was about to be armihilated forever. 
 
 Though the defense had thirty peremptory chal- 
 lenges Mr. Tutt well knew that Babson would sustain 
 the prosecution's objections for bias until the jury box 
 would contain the twelve automata personally selected 
 by O'Brien in advance from what Tutt called "the 
 army of the gibbet." Yet the old war horse outwardly 
 maintained a calm and genial exterior, betraying none 
 of the apprehension which in fact existed beneath his 
 mask of professional composure. The court officer 
 rapped sharply for silence. 
 
 "Are you quite ready to proceed with the case?" 
 inquired the judge with a courtesy in which was ill 
 concealed a leer of triumph. 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 19 
 
 "Yes, Your Honor," responded Mr. Tutt in velvet 
 tones. 
 
 "Call the first talesman !" 
 
 The fight was on, the professional duel between tra- 
 ditional enemies, in which the stake — a human life — 
 was in truth the thing of least concern, had begun. 
 Yet no casual observer would have suspected the actual 
 significance of what was going on or the part that 
 envy, malice, uncharitableness, greed, selfishness and 
 ambition were playing in it. He would have seen 
 merely a partially filled courtroom flooded with sun- 
 shine from high windows, an attentive and dignified 
 judge in a black silk robe sitting upon a dais below 
 which a white-haired clerk drew little slips of paper 
 from a wheel and summoned jurymen to a service 
 which outwardly bore no suggestion of a tragedy. 
 
 He would have seen a somewhat unprepossessing 
 assistant district attorney lounging in front of the 
 jury box, taking apparently no great interest in the 
 proceedings, and a worried-looking young Italian sit- 
 ting at the prisoner's table between a rubicund little 
 man with a round red face and a tall, grave, longish- 
 haired lawyer with a frame not unlike that of Abraham 
 Lincoln, over whose wrinkled face played from time 
 to time the suggestion of a smile. Behind a balustrade 
 were the reporters, scribbling on rough sheets of yel- 
 low paper. Then came the rows of benches, upon the 
 first of which, as near the jury box as possible, sat 
 Rosalina in a new bombazine dress and wearing a large 
 imitation gold cross furnished for the occasion out of 
 
20 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 the legal property room of Tutt & Tutt. Occasionallj? 
 she sobbed softly. The bulk of the spectators consisted 
 of rejected talesmen, witnesses, law clerks, professional 
 court loafers and women seeking emotional sensations 
 which they had not the courage or the means to satisfy 
 otherwise. The courtroom was comparatively quiet, 
 the silence broken only by the droning voice of the 
 derk and the lazy interplay of question and answer 
 between talesman and lawyer. 
 
 Yet beneath the humdrum, casual, almost indifferent 
 manner in which the proceedings seemed to be con- 
 ducted each side was watching every move made by the 
 other with the tension of a tiger ready to spring upon 
 its prey. Babson and O'Brien were engaged in forcing 
 upon the defense a jury composed entirely of case- 
 hardened convictors, wEile Tutt & Tutt were fighting 
 desperately to secure one so heterogeneous in character 
 that they could hope for a disagreement. 
 
 By recess thirty-seven talesmen had been examined 
 without a foreman having been selected, and Mr. Tutt 
 had exhausted twenty-nine of his thirty challenges, as 
 against three for the prosecution. The court recon- 
 vened and a new talesman was called, resembling in ap- 
 pearance a professional hangman who for relaxation 
 leaned toward the execution of Italians. Mr. Tutt 
 examined him for bias and every known form of in- 
 competency, but in vain — then challenged peremptorily. 
 Thirty challenges! He looked on Tutt with slightly 
 raised eyebrows. 
 
 "Patrick Henry Walsh — to the witness chair, please, 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 21 
 
 Mr. Walsh!" called the clerk, drawing another slip 
 from the box. 
 
 Mr. Walsh rose and came forward heavily, while 
 Tutt & Tutt trembled. He was the one man they were 
 afraid of — an old-timer celebrated as a bulwark of the 
 prosecution, who could always be safely counted upon 
 to uphold the arms of the law, who regarded with 
 reverence all oflEicials connected with the administration 
 of justice, and from whose composition all human 
 emotions had been carefully excluded by the Creator. 
 He was a square-jawed, severe, heavily built person, 
 with a long relentless upper lip, cheeks ruddy from the 
 open air; engaged in the contracting business; and he 
 had a brogue that would have charmed a mavis off 
 a tree. Mr. Tutt looked hopelessly at Tutt. 
 
 Babson and O'Brien had won. 
 
 Once more Mr. Tutt struggled against his fate. Was 
 Mr. Walsh sure he had no prejudices against Italians 
 or foreigners generally? Quite. Did he know any- 
 body connected with the case? No. Had he any ob- 
 jection to the infliction of capital punishment? None 
 whatever. The defense had exhausted all its chal- 
 lenges. Mr. Tutt turned to the prospective foreman 
 with an endearing smile. 
 
 "Mr. Walsh," said he in caressing tones, "you are 
 precisely the type of man in whom I feel the utmost 
 confidence in submitting the fate of my client. I be- 
 lieve that you will make an ideal foreman. I hardly 
 need to ask you whether you will accord the defendant 
 
22 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 the benefit of every reasonable doubt, and if you have 
 such a doubt will acquit him." 
 
 Mr. Walsh gazed suspiciously at Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "Sure," he responded dryly, "Oi'll give him the 
 benefit o' the doubt, but if Oi think he's guilty Oi'll 
 convict him." 
 
 Mr. Tutt shivered. 
 
 "Of course! Of course! That would be your duty ! 
 You are entirely satisfactory, Mr. Walsh!" 
 
 "Mr. Walsh is more than satisfactory to the prose- 
 cution!" intoned O'Brien. 
 
 "Be sworn, Mr. Walsh," directed the clerk ; and the 
 filling of the jury box in the memorable case of People 
 versus Serafino was begun. 
 
 "That chap doesn't like us," whispered Mr. Tutt to 
 Tutt. "I laid it on a bit too thick." 
 
 In fact, Mr. Walsh had already entered upon 
 friendly relations with Mr. O'Brien, and as the latter 
 helped him arrange a place for his hat and coat the 
 foreman cast a look tinged with malevolence at the de- 
 fendant and his counsel, as if to say : "You can't fool 
 me. I know the kind of tricks you fellows are all up 
 to." 
 
 O'Brien could not repress a grin. The clerk drew 
 forth another name. 
 
 "Mr. Tompkins — will you take the chair?" 
 
 Swiftly the jury was impaneled. O'Brien challenged 
 everybody who did not suit his fancy, while Tutt & 
 Tutt sat helpless. 
 
 Ten minutes and the clerk called the roll, beginning; 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 23 
 
 with Mr. Walsh, and they were solemnly sworn a true 
 verdict to find, and settled themselves to the task. 
 
 The mills of the gods had begun to grind, and 
 Angelo was being dragged to his fate as inexorably 
 and as surely, with about as much chance of escape, 
 as a log that is being drawn slowly toward a buzz saw. 
 
 "You may open the case, Mr. O'Brien," announced 
 Judge Babson, leaning back and wiping his glasses. 
 
 Then surreptitiously he began to read his mail as his 
 fellow conspirator undertook to tell the jury what it 
 was all about. One by one the witnesses were called 
 — the coroner's physician, the policeman who had ar- 
 restedAngelo outside the barber shop with the smoking 
 pistol in his hand, the assistant barber who had seen 
 the shooting, the customer who was being shaved. 
 Each drove a spike into poor Angelo's legal coffin. 
 Mr. Tutt could not shake them. This evidence was 
 plain. He had come into the shop, accused Crocedoro 
 of making his wife's life unbearable and — shot him. 
 
 Yet Mr. Tutt did not lose any of his equanimity. 
 With the tips of his long fingers held lightly together 
 in front of him, and swaying slightly backward and 
 forward upon the balls of his feet, he smiled benignly 
 down upon the customer and the barber's assistant as 
 if these witnesses were merely unfortunate in not being 
 able to disclose to the jury all the facts. His manner 
 indicated that a mysterious and untold tragedy lay be- 
 hind what they had heard, a tragedy pregnant with 
 primordial vital passions, involving the most sacred 
 
24 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 of human relationships, which when known would 
 rouse the spirit of chivalry of the entire panel. 
 
 On cross-examination the barber testified that An- 
 gelo h^d said: "You maka smail of my wife long 
 enough !" 
 
 "Ah!" murmured Mr. Tutt, waving an arm in the 
 direction of Rosalina. Did the witness recognize the 
 defendant's young wife? The jury showed interest 
 and examined the sobbing Rosalina with approval. 
 Yes, the witness recognized her. Did the witness know 
 to what incident or incidents the defendant had re- 
 ferred by his remark — what the deceased Crocedoro 
 had done to Rosalina — if anything? No, the witness 
 did not. Mr. Tutt looked significantly at the row of 
 faces in the jury box. 
 
 Then leaning forward he asked significantly : "Did 
 you see Crocedoro threaten the defendant with his 
 razor?" 
 
 "I object!" shouted O'Brien, springing to his feet. 
 "The question is improper. There is no suggestioa 
 that Crocedoro did anything. The defendant can testi- 
 fy to that if he wants to!" 
 
 "Oh, let him answer !" drawled the judge. 
 
 "No " began the witness. 
 
 "Ah !" cried Mr. Tutt. "You did not see Crocedoro 
 threaten the defendant with his razor! That will do!" 
 
 But forewarned by this trifling experience Mr. 
 O'Brien induced the customer, the next witness, (to 
 swear that Crocedoro had not in fact made any mov^;; 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 25 
 
 whatever with his razor toward Angelo, who had de- 
 liberately raised his pistol and shot him. 
 
 Mr. Tutt rose to the cross-examination with the 
 same urbanity as before. Where was the witness stand- 
 ing? The witness said he wasn't standing. Well, 
 where was he sitting, then ? In the chair. 
 
 "Ah !" exclaimed Mr. Tutt triumphantly. "Then 
 you had your back to the shooting!" 
 
 In a moment O'Brien had the witness practically 
 rescued by the explanation that he had seen the whole 
 thing in the glass in front of him. The firm of Tutt 
 & Tutt uttered in chorus a groan of outraged incredu- 
 lity. Several jurymen were seen to wrinkle their fore- 
 heads in meditation. Mr. Tutt had sown a tiny — in- 
 finitesimally tiny, to be sure — seed of doubt, not as to 
 the killing at all but as to the complete veracity of the 
 witness. 
 
 And then O'Brien made his coup. 
 
 "Rosalina Serafino — take the witness stand!" he 
 ordered. 
 
 He would get from her own lips the admission that 
 she bought the pistol and gave it to Angelo! But with 
 an outburst of indignation that would have done credit 
 to the elder Booth Mr. Tutt was immediately on his 
 feet protesting against the outrage, the barbarity, the 
 heartlessness, the illegality of making a wife testify 
 against her husband ! His eyes flashed, his disordered 
 locks waved in picturesque synchronization with his 
 impassioned gestures. Rosalina, her beautiful golden 
 cross rising and falling hysterically upon her bosom, 
 
26 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 took her seat in the witness chair like a frightened, 
 furtive creature of the woods, gazed for one brief in- 
 stant upon the twelve men in the jury-box witfi. those 
 great black eyes of hers, and then with burning cheeks 
 buried her face in her handkerchief. 
 
 "I protest against this piece of cruelty !" cried Mr. 
 Tutt in a voice vibrating with indignation. "This is 
 worthy of the Inquisition. Will not even the cross 
 upon her breast protect her from being compelled to 
 reveal those secrets that are sacred to wife and mother- 
 hood? Can the law thus indirectly tear the seal of 
 confidence from the Confessional? Mr. O'Brien, you 
 go too far! There are some things that even you — 
 brilliant as you are — ^may not trifle with." 
 
 A juryman nodded. The eleven others, being more 
 intelligent, failed to understand what he was talking 
 about. 
 
 "Mr. Tutt's objection is sound — if he wishes to press 
 it," remarked the judge satirically. "You may step 
 down, madam. The law will not compel a wife to 
 testify against her husband. Have you any more wit- 
 nesses. Mister District Attorney?" 
 
 "The People rest," said Mr. O'Brien. "The case is 
 with the defense." 
 
 Mr. Tutt rose with solemnity. 
 
 "The court will, I suppose, grant me a moment or 
 two to confer with my client?" he inquired. Babson 
 bowed and the jury saw the lawyer lean across the de- 
 fendant and engage his partner in what seemed to 
 be a weighty deliberation. 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 37 
 
 "I killa him I I say so!" muttered Angelo feebly 
 to Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "Shut up, you fool!" hissed Tutt, grabbing him by 
 the leg. "Keep still or I'll wring your neck." 
 
 "If I could reach that old crook up on the bench I 
 would twist his nose," remarked Mr. Tutt to Tutt with 
 an air of consulting him about the Year Books. "And 
 as for that criminal O'Brien, I'll get him yet !" 
 
 With great dignity Mr. Tutt then rose and again 
 addressed the court : 
 
 "We have decided under all the circumstances of 
 this most extraordinary case, Your Honor, not to 
 put in any defense. I shall not call the defendant " 
 
 "I killa him " began Angelo, breaking loose 
 
 from Tutt and struggling to his feet. It was a horrible 
 movement. But Tutt clapped his hand over Angelo's 
 mouth and forced him back into his seat. 
 
 "The defense rests," said Mr. Tutt, ignoring the in- 
 terruption. "So far as we are concerned the case is 
 closed." 
 
 "Both sides rest !" snapped Babson. "How long do 
 you want to sum up ?" 
 
 Mr. Tutt looked at the clock, which pointed to three. 
 The regular hour of adjournment was at four. Delay 
 was everything in a case like this. A juryman might 
 die suddenly overnight or fall grievously ill ; or some 
 legal accident might occur which would necessitate de- 
 claring a mistrial. There is always hope in a criminal 
 case so long as the verdict has not actually been re- 
 turned and the jury polled and discharged. If possible 
 
28 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 he must drag his summing up over until the following 
 day. Something might happen. 
 
 "About two hours, Your Honor," he replied. 
 
 The jury stirred impatiently. It was clear that they 
 regarded a two-hour speech from him under the cir- 
 cumstances as an imposition. But Babson wished to 
 preserve the fiction of impartiality. 
 
 "Very well," said he. "You may sum up until four- 
 thirty, and have half an hour more to-morrow morn- 
 ing. See that the doors are closed. Captain Phelan. 
 We do not want any interruption while the summa- 
 tions are going on." 
 
 "All out that's goin' out I Everybody out that's got 
 no business with the court !" bellowed Captain Phelan. 
 
 Mr. Tutt with an ominous heightening of the pulse 
 realized that the real ordeal was at last at hand, for 
 the closing of the case had wrought in the old lawyer 
 an instant metamorphosis. With the words "The de- 
 fense rests" every suggestion of the mountebafik,-the 
 actor or the shyster had vanished. The awful responsi- 
 bility under which he labored ; the overwhelming and 
 damning evidence against his client; the terrible con- 
 sequences of the least mistake that he might make; 
 the fact that only the sword of his ability, and his 
 alone, stood between Angelo and a hideous death by 
 fire in the electric chair — sobered and chastened him. 
 Had he been a praying man in that moment he would 
 have prayed — but he was not. 
 
 For his client was foredoomed — foredoomed not 
 only by justice but also by trickery and guile — ^and was 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 29 
 
 being driven slowly but surely towards the judicial 
 shambles. For what had he succeeded in adducing in 
 his behalf ? Nothing but the purely apocryphal specula- 
 tion that the dead barber might have threatened Angelo 
 with his razor and that the witnesses might possibly 
 have drawn somewhat upon their imaginations in giv- 
 ing the details of their testimony. A sorry defense! 
 Indeed, no defense at all. All the sorrier in that he 
 had not even been able to get before the jury the purely 
 sentimental excuses for the homicide, for he could only 
 do this by calling Rosalina to the stand, which would 
 have enabled the prosecution to cross-examine her in 
 regard to the purchase of the pistol and the delivery 
 of it to her husband — the strongest evidence of pre- 
 meditation. Yet he must find some argument, some 
 plea, some thread of reason upon which the jury might 
 hang a disagreement or a verdict in a lesser degree. 
 
 With a shufiSing of feet the last of the crowd pushed 
 through the big oak doors and they were closed and 
 locked. An officer brought a corroded tumbler of 
 brackish water and placed it in front of Mr. Tutt. 
 The judge leaned forward with malicious courtesy. 
 The jury settled themselves and turned toward the 
 lawyer attentively yet defiantly, hardening their hearts 
 already against his expected appeals to sentiment. 
 O'Brien, ostentatiously producing a cigarette, lounged 
 out through the side door leading to the jury room and 
 prison cells. The clerk began copying his records. 
 The clock ticked loudly. 
 
 And Mr. Tutt rose and began going through the 
 
30 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 empty formality of attempting to discuss the evidence 
 in such a way as to excuse or palliate Angelo's crime. 
 For Angelo's guilt of murder in the first degree was 
 so plain that it had never for one moment been in the 
 slightest doubt. Whatever might be said for his act 
 from the point of view of human emotion only made 
 his motive and his responsibility under the statutes 
 all the clearer. There was not even the unwritten law 
 to appeal to. Yet there was fundamentally a genuine 
 defense, a defense that could not be urged even by in- 
 nuendo : the defense that no accused ought to be con- 
 victed upon any evidence whatever, no matter how 
 conclusive, in a trial conducted with essential though 
 wholly concealed unfairness. 
 
 Such was the case of Angelo. No one could demon- 
 strate it, no one could with safety even hint at it ; any 
 charge that the court was anything but impartial would 
 prove a boomerang to the defense; and yet the facts 
 remained that the whole proceeding from start to finish 
 had been conducted unfairly and with illegality, that 
 the jury had been duped and deceived, and that the 
 pretense that the guilty Angelo had been given an im- 
 partial trial was a farce. Every word of the court had 
 been an accusation, a sneer, an acceptance of the de- 
 fendant's guilt as a matter of course, an abuse far 
 more subversive of our theory of government than the 
 mere acquittal of a single criminal, for it struck at the 
 very foundations of that liberty which the fathers had 
 sought the shores of the unknown continent to gain. 
 
 Unmistakably the proceedings had been conducted 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 31 
 
 ( 
 
 throughout upon the theory that the defendant must 
 prove his innocence and that presumably he was a 
 guilty man ; and this as well as his own impression that 
 the evidence was conclusive the judge had subtly con- 
 veyed to the jury in his tone of speaking, his ironical 
 manner and his facial expression. Guilty or not An- 
 gelo was being railroaded. That was the real de- 
 fense — the defense that could never be established even 
 in any higher court, except perhaps in the highest court 
 of all, which is not of earth. 
 
 And so Mr. Tutt, boiling with suppressed indigna- 
 tion, weighed down with the sense of his responsibility, 
 fully realizing his inability to say anything based on 
 the evidence in behalf of his client, feeling twenty 
 years older than he had during the verbal duel of the 
 actual cross-examination, rose with a genial smile 
 upon his puckered old face and with a careless air al- 
 most of gaiety, which seemed to indicate the utmost 
 confidence and determination, and with a graceful com- 
 pliment to his arch enemy upon the bench and the 
 yellow dog who had hunted with him, assured the jury 
 that the defendant had had the fairest of fair trials and 
 that he, Mr. Tutt, would now proceed to demonstrate 
 to their satisfaction his client's entire innocence; nay, 
 would indeed show them that he was a man not only 
 guiltless of any wrong-doing but worthy of their 
 hearty commendation. 
 
 With jokes not too unseemly for the occasion he 
 overcame their preliminary distrust and put them in a 
 good humor. He gave a historical dissertation upon 
 
32^ TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 the law governing homicide, on the constitutional 
 rights of American citizens, on the laws of naturaliza- 
 tion, marriage, and the domestic relations; waxed elo- 
 quent over Italy and the Italian character, mentioned 
 Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini in a way to imply that 
 Angelo was their lineal descendant; and quoted from 
 D'Annunzio back to H0r9.ce, Cicero and Plautus, 
 
 "Bunk ! Nothing but bunk !" muttered Tutt, study- 
 ing the twelve faces before him. "And they all know 
 it!" 
 
 But Mr. Tutt was nothing if not interesting. These 
 prosaic citizens of New York County, these saloon 
 and hotel keepers, these contractors, insurance agents 
 and salesmen were learning something of history, of 
 philosophy, of art and beauty. They liked it. They 
 felt they were hearing something Sworth while, as in- 
 deed they were, and they forgot all about Angelo and 
 the unfortunate Crocedoro in their admiration for Mr. 
 Tutt, who had lifted them out of the dingy sordid 
 courtroom into the. sunlight of the Golden Age. And 
 as he led them through Greek and Roman literature, 
 through the early English poets, through Shakspere 
 and the King James version, down to John Galsworthy 
 and Rupert Brooke, he brought something that was 
 noble, fine and sweet into their grubby materialistic 
 lives ; and at the same time the hand of the clock crept 
 steadily on until he and it reached Chateau-Thierry and 
 half past four together. 
 
 "Bang!" went Babson's gavel just as Mr. Tutt was 
 leading Mr. Walsh, Mr. Tompkins and the others 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 33 
 
 through the winding paths of the Argonne forests with 
 tin helmets on their heads in the struggle for liberty. 
 "You may conclude your address in the morning, 
 Mr. Tutt," said the Judge with supreme unction. "Ad- 
 journ court 1" 
 
 Gray depression weighed down Mr. Tutt's soul as 
 he trudged homeward. He had made a good speech, 
 but it had had absolutely nothing to do with the case, 
 which the jury would perceive as soon as they thought 
 it over. It was a confession of defeat. Angelo would 
 be convicted of murder in the first degree and electro- 
 cuted, Rosalina would be a widow, and somehow he 
 would be in a measure responsible for it. The tragedy 
 of human life appalled him. He felt very old, as old 
 as the dead-and-gone authors from whom he had 
 quoted with such remarkable facility. He belonged 
 with them ; he was too old to practise his profession. 
 
 "Law, Mis' Tutt," expostulated Miranda, his ancient 
 negro handmaiden, as he pushed away the chop and 
 mashed potato, and even his glass of claret, untasted, 
 in his old-fashioned dining room on West Twenty- 
 third Street, "you ain't got no appetite at all! You's 
 sick, Mis' Tutt." 
 
 "No, no, Miranda!" he replied weakly. "I'm just 
 getting old." 
 
 "You's mighty spry for an old man yit," she pro- 
 tested. "You kin make dem lawyer men hop mighty 
 high when you tries. Heh, heh! I reckon dey ain't 
 got nuffin' on my Mistah Tutt!" 
 
34 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Upstairs in his library Mr. Tutt strode up and down 
 before the empty grate, smoking stogy after stogy, try- 
 ing to collect his thoughts and devise something to say 
 upon the morrow, but all his ideas had flown. There 
 wasn't anything to say. Yet he swore Angelo should 
 not be offered up as a victim upon the altar of un- 
 scrupulous ambition. The hours passed and the old 
 banjo clock above the mantel wheezed eleven, twelve; 
 then one, two. Still he paced up and down, up and 
 down in a sort of trance. The air of the library, blue 
 with the smoke of countless stogies, stifled and suffo- 
 cated him. Moreover he discovered that he was hun- 
 gry. He descended to the pantry and salvaged a piece 
 of pie, then unchained the front door and stepped forth 
 into the soft October night. 
 
 A full moon hung over the deserted streets of the 
 sleeping city. In divers places, widely scattered, the 
 twelve good and true men were snoring snugly in bed. 
 To-morrow they would send Angelo to his death with- 
 out a quiver. He shuddered, striding on, he knew not 
 whither, into the night. His brain ho longer worked.* 
 He had become a peripatetic automaton self-dedicated 
 to nocturnal perambulation. 
 
 With his pockets bulging with stogies and one glow- 
 ing like a headlight in advance of him he wandered in 
 a sort of coma up Tenth Avenue, crossed to the River- 
 side Drive, mounted Momingside Heights, descended 
 again through the rustling alleys of Central Park, and 
 found himself at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street 
 just as the dawn was paling the electric lamps to a 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 3S 
 
 sickly yellow and the trees were casting strange un- 
 wonted shadows in the wrong direction. He was ut- 
 terly exhausted. He looked eagerly for some place to 
 sit down, but the doors of the hotels were dark and 
 tightly closed and it was too cold to remain without 
 moving in the open air. 
 
 Down Fifth Avenue he trudged, intending to go 
 home and snatch a few hours' sleep before court should 
 open, but each block seemed miles in length. Presently 
 he approached the cathedral, whose twin spires were 
 tinted with reddish gold. The sky had become a bright 
 blue. Suddenly all the street lamps went out. He 
 told himself that he had never realized before the 
 beauty of those two towers reaching up toward eter- 
 nity, typifying man's aspiration for the spiritual. He 
 remembered having heard that a cathedral was never 
 closed, and looking toward the door he perceived that 
 it was open. With utmost difficulty he climbed the 
 steps and entered its dark shadows. A faint light 
 emanated from the tops of the stained-glass windows. 
 Down below a candle burned on either side of the altar 
 while a flickering gleam shone from the red cup in the 
 sanctuary lamp. Worn out, drugged for lack of sleep, 
 faint for want of food, old Mr. Tutt sank down upon 
 one of the rear seats by the door, and resting his head 
 upon his arms on the back of the bench in front of 
 him fell fast asleep. 
 
 He dreamed of a legal heaven, of a great wooden 
 throne upon which sat Babson in a black robe and be- 
 llow him twelve red- faced angels in a double row with 
 
36 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 harps in their hands, chanting: "Guilty! Guilty! 
 Guilty!" An organ was playing somewhere, and there 
 was a great noise of footsteps. Then a bell tinkled 
 and he raised his head and saw that the chancel was 
 full of lights and white-robed priests. It was broad 
 daylight. Horrified he looked at his watch, to find 
 that it was ten minutes after ten. His joints creaked 
 as he pulled himself to his feet and his eyes were half 
 closed as he staggered down the steps and hailed a 
 taxi, i 
 
 "Criminal Courts Building — side door. And drive 
 like hell !" he muttered to the driver. ' 
 
 He reached it just as Judge Babson and his attend- 
 ant were coming into the courtroom and the crowd 
 were making obeisance. Everybody else was in his 
 proper place. 
 
 "You may proceed, Mr. Tutt," said the judge after 
 the roll of the jury had been called. ■ 
 
 But Mr. Tutt was in a daze, in no condition to think 
 or speak. There was a curious rustling in his ears and 
 his sight was somewhat blurred. The atmosphere of 
 the courtroom seemed to him cold and hostile; the 
 jury sat with averted faces. He rose feebly and 
 cleared his throat. ' 
 
 "Gentlemen of the jury," he began, "I — I think I 
 covered everything I had to say yesterday afternoon. 
 I can only beseech you to realize the full extent of 
 your great responsibility and remind you that if you 
 entertain a reasonable doubt upon the evidence you are 
 sworn to give the benefit of it to the defendant." 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 37 
 
 He sank back in his chair and covered his eyes with 
 his hands, while a murmur ran along the benches of 
 the courtroom. The old man had collapsed — tough 
 luck — the defendant was cooked! Swiftly O'Brien 
 leaped to his feet. There had been no defense. The 
 case was as plain as a pikestaff. There was only one 
 thing for the jury to do — return a verdict of murder 
 in the first. It would not be pleasant, but that made 
 no difference! He read them the statute, applied it 
 to the facts, and shook his fist in their faces. They 
 must convict — and convict of only one thing — ^and 
 nothing else — ^murder in the first degree. They gazed 
 at him like silly sheep, nodding their heads, doing 
 everything but bleat. 
 
 Then Babson cleared his decks and rising in dignity 
 expounded the law to the sheep in a rich mellow voice, 
 in which he impressed upon them the necessity of pre- 
 serving the integrity of the jury system and the sanc- 
 tity of human life. He pronounced an obituary of 
 great beauty upon the deceased barber — who could not, 
 as he pointed out, speak for himself, owing to the fact 
 that he was in his grave. He venomously excoriated 
 the defendant, who had deliberately planned to kill 
 an unarmed man peacefully conducting himself in his 
 place of business, and expressed the utmost confidence 
 that he could rely upon the jury, whose character he 
 well knew, to perform their full duty no matter how 
 disagreeable that duty might be. The sheep nodded. 
 
 "You may retire, gentlemen." 
 
 Babson looked down at Mr. Tutt with a significant 
 
38 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 gleam in his eye. He had driven in the knife to the 
 hilt and twisted it round and round. Angelo had al- 
 most as much chance as the proverbial celluloid cat. 
 Mr. Tutt felt actually sick. He did not look at the 
 jury as they went out. They would not be long — and 
 he could hardly face the thought of their return. Never 
 in his long experience had he found himself in such a 
 desperate situation. Heretofore there had always been 
 some argument, some construction of the facts upon 
 which he could make an appeal, however fallacious or 
 illogical. 
 
 He leaned back and closed his eyes. The judge was 
 chatting with O'Brien, the court officers were betting, 
 with the reporters as to the length of time in which 
 it would take the twelve to agree upon a verdict of 
 murder in the first. The funeral rites were all con- 
 cluded except for the final commitment of the corpse 
 to mother earth. 
 
 And then without warning Angelo suddenly rose 
 and addressed the court in a defiant shriek. 
 
 "I killa that man!" he cried wildly. "He maka 
 small of my wife ! He no good I He bad egg ! I killa 
 him once — I killa him again!" 
 
 "So!" exclaimed Babson with biting sarcasm. "You 
 want to make a confession? You hope for mercy, do 
 you? Well, Mr. Tutt, what do you wish to do under 
 the circumstances? Shall I recall the jury and reopen 
 the case by consent?" 
 
 Mr. Tutt rose trembling to his feet. 
 
 "The case is closed. Your Honor," he replied. "I 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 39 
 
 will consent to a mistrial and offer a plea of guilty of 
 manslaughter. I cannot agree to reopen the case. I 
 cannot let the defendant go upon the stand." 
 
 The spectators and reporters were pressing forward 
 to the bar, anxious lest they should lose a single word 
 of the colloquy. Angelo remained standing, looking 
 eagerly at O'Brien, who returned his gaze with a grin 
 like that of a hyena. 
 
 "I killa him!" Angelo repeated. "You killa me if 
 you want." 
 
 "Sit down !" thundered the judge. "Enough of this ! 
 The law does not permit me to accept a plea to murder 
 in the first degree, and my conscience and my sense of 
 duty to the public will permit me to accept no other. 
 Twill go to my chambers to await the verdict of the 
 jury. Take the prisoner downstairs to the prison pen." 
 
 He swept from the bench in his silken robes. Angelo 
 was led away. The crowd in the courtroom slowly 
 dispersed. Mr. Tutt, escorted by Tutt, went out in 
 the corridor to smoke. 
 
 "Ye got a raw deal, counselor," remarked Captain 
 Phelan, amiably accepting a stogy. "Nothing but an 
 act of Providence c'd save that Eyetalian from the 
 chair! An' him guilty at that!" 
 
 An hour passed ; then another. At half after four 
 a rumor flew along the corridors that the jury in the 
 Serafino case had reached a verdict and were coming 
 in. A messenger scurried to the judge's chambers. 
 Phelan descended the iron stairs to bring up the pris- 
 oner, while Tutt to prevent a scene invented an excuse 
 
40 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 by which he lured Rosalina to the first floor of the 
 building. The crowd suddenly reassembled out of no- 
 where and poured into the courtroom. The reporters 
 gathered expectantly round their table. The judge 
 entered, his robes gathered in one hand. 
 
 "Bring in the jury," he said sharply. "Arraign the 
 prisoner at the bar." 
 
 Mr.. Tutt took his place beside his client at the rail- 
 ing, while the jury, carrying their coats and hats, 
 filed slowly in. Their faces were set and relentless. 
 They looked neither to the right nor to the left. 
 O'Brien sauntered over and seated himself noncha- 
 lantly with his back to the court, studying their faces. 
 Yes, he told himself, they were a regular set of hang- 
 men — ^he couldn't have picked a tougher bunch if he'd 
 had his choice of the whole panel. 
 
 The clerk called the roll, and Messrs. Walsh, Tomp- 
 kins, et al., stated that they were all present. 
 
 "Gentlemen of the jury, haye you agreed upon a ver- 
 dict?" inquired the clerk. 
 
 "We have !" replied Mr. Walsh sternly. 
 
 "How say you ? Do you find the defendant guilty or 
 not guilty?" 
 
 Mr. Tutt gripped the balustrade in front of him with 
 one hand and put his other arm round Angelo. He 
 felt that now in truth murder was being done. 
 
 "We find the defendant not guilty," said Mr. Walsh 
 defiantly. 
 
 There was a momentary silence of incredulity. 
 
THE HUMAN ELEMENT 41 
 
 Then Babson and O'Brien shouted simultaneously: 
 "What!" 
 
 "We find the defendant not guilty," repeated Mr. 
 Walsh stubbornly. 
 
 "I demand that the jury be polled !" cried the crest- 
 fallen O'Brien, his face crimson. 
 
 And then the twelve reiterated severally that that 
 was their verdict and that they hearkened unto it as 
 it stood recorded and that they were entirely satisfied 
 with it. 
 
 "You are discharged!" said Babson in icy tones. 
 "Striire the names of these men from the Hst of jurors 
 — as incompetent. Haven't you any other charge on 
 whidi you can try this defendant?" 
 
 "No, Your Honor," answered O'Brien grimly. "He 
 didn't take the stand, so we can't try him for perjury; 
 and there isn't any other indictment against him." 
 
 Judge Babson turned ferociously upon Mr. Tutt: 
 
 "This acquittal is a blot upon the administration of 
 criminal justice; a disgrace to the city! It is an un- 
 conscionable verdict; a reflection upon the intelligence 
 of the jury! The defendant is discharged. This 
 court is adjourned." 
 
 The crowd surged round Angelo and bore him away, 
 bewildered. The judge and prosecutor hurried from 
 the room. Alone Mr. Tutt stood at the bar, trying to 
 grasp the full meaning of what had occurred. 
 
 He no longer felt tired; he experienced an exulta- 
 fion such as he had never known before. Some miracle 
 had happened! What was it? 
 
42 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Unexpectedly the lawyer felt a rough warm hand 
 clasped over his own upon the rail and heard the voicft 
 of Mr. Walsh with its rich brogue saying : "At first we 
 couldn't see that there was much to be said for your 
 side of the case, Mr. Tutt; but when Oi stepped into 
 the cathedral on me way down to court this morning 
 and spied you prayin' there for guidance I knew you 
 wouldn't be defendin' him unless he was innocent, and 
 so we decided to give him the benefit of the doubt." 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 
 
 "Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain 
 shall meet." 
 
 — Ballad of East and West. 
 
 "But the law of the jungle is jungle law only, and the law of 
 the pack is only for the pack." 
 
 — Other Sayings of Shere Khan. 
 
 A HALF turn from the clattering hubbub of Chatham 
 Square and you are in Chinatown, slipping, within ten 
 feet, through an invisible wall, from the glitter of the 
 gin palace and the pawnshop to the sinister shadows 
 of irregular streets and blind alleys, where yellow men 
 pad swiftly along greasy asphalt beneath windows 
 glinting with ivory, bronze and lacquer ; through which 
 float the scents of aloes and of incense and all the 
 subtle suggestion of the East. 
 
 No one better than the Chink himself realizes the 
 /commercial value of the taboo, the bizarre and the 
 unclean. Nightly the rubber-neck car swinging gayly 
 with lanterns stops before the imitation joss house, 
 the spurious opium joint and tortuous passage to the 
 fake fan-tan and faro game, with a farewell call at 
 Hong Joy Fah's Oriental restaurant and the well- 
 stocked novelty store of Wing, Hen & Co. The visit- 
 ors see what they expect to see, for the Chinaman al- 
 ways gives his public exactly what it wants. 
 
44 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 But a dollar does not show you Chinatown. To 
 some the ivories will always be but crudely carven bone, 
 the jades the potter's sham, the musk and aloes the 
 product of a soap factory, the joss but a cigar-store 
 Indian, and the Oriental dainties of Hong Fah the 
 scrappings of a Yankee grocery store. Yet behind the 
 shoddy tinsel of Doyers and Pell Streets, as behind 
 Alice's looking-glass, there is another Chinatown — a. 
 strange, inhuman. Oriental world, not necessarily of 
 trapdoors and stifled screams, but one moved by in- 
 fluences undreamed of in our banal philosophies. ' 
 Hearken then to the story of the a-\jenging of Wah 
 Sing. 
 
 'Tis a tale was undoubtedly true 
 
 In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. 
 
 In the murky cellar of a Pell Street tenement seven- 
 teen Chinamen sat cross-legged in a circle round an 
 octagonal teakwood table. To an Occidental they 
 would have appeared to differ in no detail except that 
 of a varying degree of fatness. An oil lamp flickered 
 before a joss near by, and the place reeked with the 
 odor of starch, sweat, tobacco, rice whisky and the 
 incense that rose ceilingward in thin, shaking columns 
 from two bowls of Tibetan soapstone. An obese 
 Chinaman with a walnutlike countenance in which cun- 
 ning and melancholy were equally commingled was 
 speaking monotonously through long, rat-tailed mus- 
 taches, while the others listened with impassive de- 
 corum. It was a special meeting of the Hip Leong 
 Tong, held in their private clubrooms at the Great 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 45 
 
 Shanghai Tea Company, and conducted according to 
 rule. 
 
 "Therefore," said Wong Get, "as a matter of honor 
 it is necessary that our brother be avenged and that 
 no chances be taken. A much too long time has al- 
 ready elapsed. I have w^ritten the letter and will read 
 it." 
 
 He fumbled in his sleeve and drew forth a roll of 
 brown paper covered with heavy Chinese characters, 
 unwinding it from a strip of bamboo. 
 
 To the Honorable Members of the On Gee Tong: Whereas 
 it has pleased you to take the life of our beloved friend and 
 relative Wah Sing, it is with greatest courtesy and the utmost 
 regret that we inform you that it is necessary for us likewise 
 to remove one of your esteemed society, and that we shall pro- 
 ceed thereto without delay. 
 
 Due warning being thus honorably given I subscribe myself 
 with prpfound appreciation, 
 
 For the Hip Leong Tong, 
 Wong Get. 
 
 He ceased reading and there was a perfunctory 
 grunt of approval from round the circle. Then he 
 turned to the official soothsayer and directed him to 
 ascertain whether the time were propitious. The latter 
 tossed into the air a handful of painted ivory sticks, 
 carefully studied their arrangement when fallen, and 
 nodded gravely. 
 
 "The omens are favorable, O honorable one!" 
 "Then there is nothing left but the choice of our 
 representatives," continued Wong Get. "Pass the 
 fateful box, O Fong Hen." 
 
46 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Fong Hen, a slender young Chinaman, the official 
 slipper, or messenger, of the society, rose and, lifting 
 a lacquered gold box from the table, passed it solemnly 
 to each member. 
 
 "This time there will be four," said Wong Get. 
 
 Each in turn averted his eyes and removed from 
 the box a small sliver of ivory. At the conclusion of 
 the ceremony the four who had drawn red tokens rose. 
 Wong Get addressed them. 
 
 "Mock Hen, Mock Ding, Long Get, Sui Sing — to 
 you it is confided to avenge the murder of our brother 
 Wah Sing. Fail not in your purpose !" 
 
 And the four answered unemotionally : "Those to 
 whom it is confided will not fail." 
 
 Then pivoting silently upon their heels they passed 
 out of the cellar, 
 
 Wong Get glanced round the table. 
 
 "If there is no further business the society will dis- 
 perse after the customary refreshment." 
 
 Fong Hen placed thirteen tiny glasses upon the table 
 and filled them with rice whisky scented with aniseed 
 and a dash of powdered ginger. At a signal from 
 Wong Get the thirteen Chinamen lifted the glasses and 
 drank. 
 
 "The meeting is adjourned," said he. 
 
 Eighty years before, in a Cantonese rabbit warren, 
 two yellow men had fought over a white woman, and 
 one had killed the other. They had belonged to differ- 
 ent societies, or tongs. The associates of the murdered 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 47 
 
 man had avenged his death by slitting the throat of one 
 of the members of the other organization, and these 
 in turn had retahated, thus establishing a vendetta 
 which became part and parcel of the lives of certain 
 families, as naturally and unavoidably as birth, love 
 and death. As regularly as the solstice they alternated 
 in picking each other off. Branches of the Hip Leong 
 and On Gee tongs sprang up in San Francisco and 
 New York — and the feud was transferred with them 
 to Chatham Square, a feud imposing a sacred obliga- 
 tion rooted in blood, honor and religion upon every 
 member, who rather th^n fail to carry it out would 
 have knotted a yellow silken cord under his left ear 
 and swung himself gently off a table into eternal sleep. 
 Young Mock Hen, one of the four avengers, had 
 created a distinct place for himself in Chinatown by 
 making a careful study of New York psychology. He 
 was a good-looking Chink, smooth-faced, tall and 
 supple ; and he knew very jvell how to capitalize his at- 
 tractiveness. By day he attended Columbia University 
 as a special student in applied electricity, keeping a 
 convenient eye meanwhile on three coolies whom he 
 employed to run The College Laundry on Morningside 
 Heights. By night he vicariously operated a chop- 
 suey palace on Seventh Avenue, where congregated the 
 worst elements of the Tenderloin. But his heart was 
 in the gambling den which he maintained in Doyers 
 Street, and where anyone who knew the knock could 
 have a shell of hop for the asking, once Mock had given 
 him the once-over through the little sliding panel. 
 
48 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Mock was a Christian Chinaman. That is to say, 
 purely for business reasons — for what he got out of 
 it and the standing that it gave him — he attended the 
 Rising Star Mission and also frequented Hudson 
 House, the social settlement where Miss Fanny Duryea 
 taught him to play ping-pong and other exciting parlor 
 games, and read to him from books adapted to an 
 American child of ten. He was a great favorite at 
 both places, for he was sweet-tempered and wore an 
 expression of heaven-bom innocence. He had even 
 been to church with Miss Duryea, temporarily absent- 
 ing himself for that purpose of a Sunday morning 
 from the steam-heated flat where — unknown to her, of 
 course — ^he lived with his white wife, Emma Pratt, a 
 lady of highly miscellaneous antecedents. 
 
 Except when engaged in transacting legal or other 
 business with the municipal, sociologic or religious 
 world — at which times his vocabularly consisted only 
 of the most rudimentary pidgin — Mock spoke a fluent 
 and even vernacular English learned at night school. 
 Incidentally he was the head of the S)7ndicate which 
 controlled and dispensed the loo, faro, fan-tan and 
 other gambling privileges of Chinatown. 
 
 Detective Mooney, of the Second, detailed to make 
 good District Attorney Peckham's boast that there 
 had never been so little trouble with the foreign ele- 
 ment since the administration — of which he was an 
 ornament — came into office, saw Quong Lee emerge 
 from his doorway in Doyers Street just before four 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 49 
 
 o'clock the following Thursday and slip silently along 
 under the shadow of the eaves toward Ah Fong's 
 grocery — and instantly sensed something peculiar in 
 the Chink's walk. 
 
 "Hello, Quong!" he called, interposing himself. 
 "Where you goin' ?" 
 
 Quong paused with a deprecating gesture of widely 
 spread open palms. 
 
 " 'Lo yourself !" he replied blandly. "Me go buy 
 li'l' glocery." 
 
 Mooney ran his hands over the rotund body, frisk- 
 ing him for a possible forty-four. 
 
 "For the love of Mike !" he exclaimed, tearing open 
 Quong's blouse. "What sort of an undershirt is 
 that?" 
 
 Quong grinned broadly as the detective lifted the 
 suit of double-chain mail which swayed heavily under 
 his blue blouse from his shoulders to his knees. 
 
 "So-hol" continued the plain-clothes man. "Trouble 
 brewin', eh?" 
 
 He knew already that something was doing in the 
 tongs from his lobby-gow, Wing Foo. 
 
 "Must weigh eighty pounds!" he whistled. "I'd 
 like to see 'the pill that would go through that!" It 
 was, in fact, a medieval corselet of finest steel mesh, 
 capable of turning an elephant bullet. 
 
 "Go'Iong I" ordered Mooney finally. "I guess you're 
 safe!" 
 
 He turned back in the direction of Chatham Square, 
 while Quong resumed his tortoiselike perambulation 
 
so TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 toward Ah Fong's. Pell and Doyers Streets wer^ de- 
 serted save for an Italian woman carrying a baby/ and 
 were pervaded by an unnatural and suspicious silence. 
 Most of the shutters on the lower windows were down. 
 Ah Fong's subsequent story of what happened was 
 simple, and briefly to the efifect that Quong, having en- 
 tered his shop and priced various litchi nuts and pickled 
 starfruit, had purchased some powdered lizard and, 
 with the package in his left hand, had opened the door 
 to go out. As he stood there with his right hand upon 
 the knob and facing the afternoon sun four shadows 
 fell aslant the window and a man whom he positively 
 identified as Sui Sing emptied a bag of powder — after- 
 ward proved to be red pepper — ^upon Quong's face; 
 then another, Long Get, made a thrust at him with a 
 knife, the efifect of which he did not observe, as al- 
 most at the same instant Mock Hen felled him with a 
 blow upon the head with an iron bar, while a fourth> 
 Mock Ding, fired four shots at his crumpling body 
 with a revolver, one of which glanced off and frac- 
 tured a very costly Chien Lung vase and ruined four 
 boxes of mandarin-blossom tea. In his excitement he 
 ducked behind the counter, and when sufficiently re- 
 vived he crawled forth to find what had once been 
 Quong lying across the threshold, the murderers gone, 
 and the Italian woman prostrate and shrieking with 
 a hip splintered by a stray bullet. On the sidewalk 
 outside the window lay the remnants of the bag of 
 pepper, a knife broken short ofif at the handle, a heavy 
 bar of soft iron slightly bent, and a partially emptied 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 53 
 
 forty-four-caliber revolver. Quongfs suit of mail hj,. 
 effectually protected him from the knife thrust ana 
 the revolver shots, but his skull was crushed beyond 
 repair. Thus was the murder of Wah Sing avenged 
 in due and proper form. 
 
 Detective Mooney, distant not more than two hun- 
 dred feet, rushed back to the corner at the sound of 
 the first shot — just in time to catch a side glimpse of 
 Mock Hen as he raced across Pell Street and disap- 
 peared into the cellar of the Great Shanghai Tea Com- 
 pany. The Italian woman was filling the air with her 
 outcries, but the detective did not pause in his hurtling 
 pursuit. He was too late, however. The cellar door 
 withstood all his efforts to break it open. 
 
 Bull Neck Burke, the wrestler, who tied Zabisko 
 once on the .«tage of the old Grand Opera House in 
 1913, had bten promenading with Mollie Malone, of 
 the Champagne Girls and Gay Burlesquers Company. 
 Both heard the fusillade and saw Mock — a streak of 
 flying blue — ^pass within a few feet of them. 
 
 "God!" ejaculated Mollie. "Sure as shootin', that's 
 Mock Hen — and he's murdered somebody!" 
 
 "It's Mock all right!" agreed Bull Neck. "That 
 puts us in as witnesses or strike me!" And he looked 
 at his watch — four-one. 
 
 "Here, Burke, put your shoulder to this!" shouted 
 Mooney from the cellar steps. "Now then!" 
 
 The two of them threw their combined weight 
 against it, the lock flew open and they fell forward 
 into the darkness. Three doors leading in different 
 
Si TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 **irections met the glare of Mooney's match. But the 
 ^fugitive had a start of at least four minutes, which 
 was three and a half more than he required. 
 
 Mock Hen took the left-hand of the three doors 
 and crept along a passage opening into an empty opium 
 parlor back of the Hip Leong clubroom. 
 
 Diving beneath one of the bunks he inserted his 
 body between the lower planking at the back and the 
 cellar wall, wormed his way some twelve feet, raised 
 a trap and emerged into a tunnel by means of which 
 and others he eventually reached the end of the block 
 and the rooms of his friend Hong Sue. 
 
 Here he changed from the Oriental costume accord- 
 ing to Chinese etiquette necessary to the homicide, into 
 a nobby suit of American clothes, put on a false mus- 
 tache, and walked boldly down Park Row, while just 
 behind him Doyers and Pell Streets swarmed with 
 bluecoats and excited citizenry. 
 
 Hudson House, the social settlement presided over 
 by Miss Fanny and affected for business reasons by 
 Mock Hen, was a mile and a half away. But Mock 
 took his time. Twenty-five full minutes elapsed before 
 he leisurely climbed the steps and slipped into the big 
 reading room. There was no one there and Moc^ 
 deftly turned back the hand of the automatic clock 
 over the platform to three-fifty-five. Then he began 
 to whistle. Presently Miss Fanny entered from the 
 rear room, her face lighting with pleasure at the sight 
 of her pet convert. 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 53 
 
 "Good afternoon, Mock Hen! You are early to- 
 day." 
 
 Mock took her hand and stroked it affectionately. 
 
 "I go Fulton Mark' buy li'l' terrapin. Stop in on 
 way to see dear Miss Fan'." 
 
 They stood thus for a moment, and while they did 
 so the clock struck four. 
 
 "I go now !" said Mock suddenly. "Four o'clock al- 
 ready." 
 
 "It's early," answered Miss Fanny. "Won't you 
 stay a little while ?" 
 
 "I go now," he repeated with resolution. "Good- 
 by, li'l' teacher!" 
 
 She watched until his lithe figure passed through the 
 door, and presently returned to the back room. Mock 
 waited outside until she had disappeared. Then he 
 changed back the clock. 
 
 "We've got you, you blarsted heathen!" cried 
 Mooney hoarsely as he and two others from the Cen- 
 tral Office threw themselves upon Mock Hen on the 
 landing outside the door of his flat. "Look out, 
 Murtha. Pipe that thing under his arm !" 
 
 "It's a bloody turtle!" gasped Murtha, shuddering. 
 
 "What's the matter, boys ?" inquired Mock. "Leggo 
 my arm, can't yer? What'd yer want, anyway?" 
 
 "We want you, you yellow skunk!" retorted 
 Mooney. "Open that door! Lively now!" 
 
 "Sure!" answered Mock amiably. "Come on in! 
 What's bitin' yer?" 
 
54 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 He unlocked the door and threw it open. 
 
 "Take a chair," he invited them. "Have a cigar? 
 You there, Emma?" 
 
 Emma Pratt, clad in a wrapper and lying on the 
 big double brass bedstead in the rear room, raised her- 
 self on one elbow. 
 
 "Yep!" she called through the passage. "Got the 
 bird?" 
 
 Mock looked at Murtha, who was carrying the 
 terrapin. 
 
 "Sure!" he called back. "Sit down, boys. What'd 
 yer want? Can't yer tell a feller?" 
 
 "We want you for croaking Quong Lee!" snapped 
 Mooney. "Where have you been?" 
 
 "Fulton Market — and Hudson House. I left here 
 quarter of four. I haven't seen Quong Lee. Where 
 was he killed ?" 
 
 Mooney laughed sardonically. 
 
 "That'll do for you, Mock ! Your alibi ain't worth 
 a damn this time. I saw you myself." 
 
 "You saw someone else," Mock assured him po- 
 litely. "I haven't been in Chinatown." 
 
 "Say, what yer doin' wit' my Chink?" demanded 
 Emma, appearing in the doorway. "He was sittin' 
 here wit' me all the afternoon, until about just before 
 four I sent him over to Fulton Market to buy a bird. 
 Who's been croaked, eh?" 
 
 "Aw, cut it out, Emma!" replied Mooney. "That 
 old stuff won't go here. Your Chink's goin' to the 
 chair. Murtha, look through the place while we put 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE SS 
 
 Mock in the wagon. Hell !" he added under his breath. 
 "Won't this make Peckham sick !" 
 
 Mr. Ephraim Tutt just finished his morning mail 
 when he was informed that Mr. Wong Get desired 
 an interview. Though the old lawyer did not formally 
 represent the Hip Leong Tong he was frequently re- 
 tained by its individual members, who held him in 
 high esteem, for they had always found him loyal to 
 their interests and as much a stickler for honor as 
 themselves. Moreover, between him and Wong Get 
 there existed a curious sympathy as if in some previous 
 state of existence Wong Get might have been Mr. 
 Tutt, and Mr. Tutt Wong Get. Perhaps, however, it 
 was merely because both were rather weary, sad and 
 worldly wise. 
 
 Wong Get did not come alone. He was accom- 
 panied by two other Hip. Leongs, the three forming 
 the law committee appointed to retain the best available 
 counsel to defend Mock Hen. In his expansive frock 
 coat and bowler hat Wong might easily have excited 
 mirth had it not been for the extreme dignity of his 
 demeanor. They were there, he stated, to request Mr. 
 Tutt to protect the interests of Mock Hen, and they 
 were prepared to pay a cash retainer and sign a written 
 1 contract binding themselves to a balance^ — so much if 
 Mock should be convicted; so much if acquitted; so 
 i much if he should die in the course of the trial with- 
 I out having been either convicted or acquitted. It was, 
 ^ said Wong Get gently, a matter of grave importance 
 
S6 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 and they would be glad to give Mr. Tutt time to think 
 it over and decide upon his terms. Suppose, then, that 
 they should return at noon? With this understanding, 
 accordingly, they departed. 
 
 "There's no point in skinning a Chink just because 
 he is a Chink," said the junior Tutt when his partner 
 had explained the situation to him. "But it isn't the 
 highest-class practise and they ought to pay well." 
 
 "What do you call well?" inquired Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "Oh, a thousand dollars down, a couple more if he's 
 convicted, and five altogether if he's acquitted." 
 
 "Do you think they can raise that amount of 
 money?" 
 
 "I think so," answered Tutt. "It might be a good 
 deal for an individual Chink to cough up on his own 
 account, but this is a cooperative afifair. Mock Hen 
 didn't kill Quong Lee to get anything out of it for 
 himself, but to save the face of his society." 
 
 "He didn't kill him at all!" declared Mr. Tutt, 
 hardly moving a muscle of his face. 
 
 "Well, you know what I mean !" said Tutt. 
 
 "He wasn't there," insisted Mr. Tutt. "He was 
 way over in Fulton Market buying a terrapin." 
 
 "That is what, if I were district attorney, I should 
 call a Mock Hen with a mockturtle defense !" grunted 
 Tutt. 
 
 Mr. Tutt chuckled. 
 
 "I shall have to get that off myself at the beginfling 
 of the case, or it might convict him," he remarked. 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 57 
 
 "But he wasn't there — unless the jury find that he 
 was." 
 
 "In which case he will — or shall — ^have been there — 
 whatever the verb is," agreed Tutt. "Anyhow they'll 
 tax every laundry and chop-suey palace from the 
 Bronx to the Battery to pay us." 
 
 "I'd hate to take our fee in bird's-nest soup, shark's 
 fin, bamboo^shoots salad and ya ko main," mused Mr. 
 Tutt. 
 
 "Or in ivory chopsticks, oolong tea, imitation jade, 
 litchi nuts and preserved leeches!" groaned Tutt. "Be 
 sure and get the thousand down ; it may be all the cash 
 we'll ever see!" 
 
 Promptly at twelve the law committee of the Hip 
 Leong Tong returned to the office of Tutt & Tutt. 
 With them came a venerable Chinaman in native cos- 
 tume, his wrinkled face as inscrutable as that of a 
 snapping turtle. The others took chairs, but this high 
 dignitary preferred to sit upon his heels on the floor, 
 creating something of the impression of an ancient 
 slant-eyed Buddha. 
 
 Wong Get translated for his benefit the arrangement 
 proposed by Mr. Tutt, after which there was a long 
 pause while His Eminence remained immovable, with- 
 out even the flicker of an eyelid. Then he delivered 
 himself in an interminable series of gargles and gur- 
 gles, supplemented by a few coughlike hisses, while 
 Wong Get translated with rapid dexterity, rurming 
 verbally in and out among his words like a carriage 
 dog between the wheels of a vehicle. 
 
S8 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 It was, declared Buddha, an affair of great moment 
 touching upon and appertaining to the private honor 
 of the Duck, the Wong, the Fong, the Long, the Sui 
 and various other families, both in America and China. 
 The life of one of their members was at stake. Their 
 face required that the proceedings should be as digni- 
 fied as possible. The price named by Mr. Tutt was 
 quite inadequate. 
 
 Mr. Tutt, repressing a smile, passed a box of stogies. 
 What amount, he inquired through Wong Get, would 
 satisfy the face of the Duck family? A somewhat 
 lengthy discussion ensued. Then Buddha rendered his 
 decision. 
 
 The honor of the Ducks, Longs and Fongs would 
 not be satisfied unless Mr. Tutt received five thousand 
 dollars down, five more if Mock Hen was convicted, 
 three more if he died before the conclusion of the 
 trial, and twenty thousand if he was acquitted. 
 
 Mr. Tutt, assuming an equal impassivity, pondered 
 upon the matter for about an inch of stogy and then 
 informed the committee that the terms were eminently 
 satisfactory. Buddha thereupon removed from the 
 folds of his tunic a gigantic roll of soiled bills of all 
 denominations and carefully counting out five thousand 
 dollars placed it upon the table. 
 
 "H'm !" remarked Tutt when he learned of the pro- 
 ceeding. "His face is ou/r fortune!" 
 
 "Look here," expostulated District Attorney Peck- 
 ham in his office to Mr. Tutt a month later. "What's 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 59 
 
 the use of our both wasting a couple of weeks trying 
 a Chinaman who is bound to be convicted? Your 
 time's too valuable for that sort of thing, and so is 
 mine. We've got three white witnesses that saw him 
 do it, and a couple of dozen Chinks besides. He 
 doesn't stand a chance ; but just because he is a Chink, 
 and to get the case out of the way, I'll let you plead 
 him to miu-der in the second degree. What do you 
 say?" 
 
 He tried to conceal his anxiety by nervously lighting 
 a cigar. He would have given a year's salary to have 
 Mock Hen safely up the river, even on a conviction 
 for manslaughter in the third, for the newspapers were 
 making his life a burden with their constant references 
 to the seeming inability of the police department and 
 district attorney's office to prevent the recurrence of 
 feud killings, in the Chinatown districts. What use 
 was it, they demanded, to maintain the expensive ma- 
 chinery of criminal justice if the tongs went gayly on 
 shooting each other up and ihcidentally taking the lives 
 of innocent bystanders ? What was a district attorney 
 for anyway ? Wasn't the law intended to cover China- 
 men as much as Italians, Poles, Greeks and niggers? 
 And now that one of these murdering Celestials had 
 been caught red-handed it was up to the D. A. to go, 
 to it, convict him, and send him to the chair! They 
 did not express themselves precisely that way, but 
 that was the gist of it. But Peckham knew that it was 
 one thing to catch a Chinaman, even red-handed, and 
 another to convict him. And so did Mr. Tutt. 
 
6o TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 The old lawyer smiled blandly — after the fashion 
 of the Hip Leong Tong. Of course, he admittedi it 
 would be much simpler to dispose of the case as Mr. 
 Peckham suggested, but his client was insistent upon 
 his innocence and seemed to have an excellent alibi. 
 He regretted, therefore, that he had no choice except 
 to go to trial. 
 
 "Then," groaned Peckham, "we may as well take 
 the winter for it. After this there's going to be a 
 closed season on Chinamen in New York City!" 
 
 Now though it was true that Mock Hen insisted 
 upon his innocence, he had not insisted upon it to 
 Mr. Tutt, for the latter had not seen him. In 
 fact, the old lawyer, recognizing what the law did not, 
 namely that a system devised for the trial and punish- 
 ment of Occidentals is totally inadequate to cope with 
 the Oriental, calmly went about his affairs, intrusting 
 to Mr. Bonnie Doon of his office the task of interview- 
 ing the witnesses furnished by Wong Get. There was 
 but one issue for the jury to pass upon. Quong Lee 
 was dead and his honorable soul was with his illus- 
 trious ancestors. He had died from a single blow 
 upon the head, delivered with an iron bar, there pres- 
 ent, to be in evidence, marked "Exhibit A." Mock 
 Hen was alleged to have done the deed. Had he? 
 There would be nothing for Mr. Tutt to do but to 
 cross-examine the witnesses and then call such as could 
 testify to Mock's alibi. So he made no preparation at 
 all and dismissed the case from his mind. He had 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 6i 
 
 hardly seen a dozen Chinamen in his life — outside of 
 a laundry. 
 
 On the morning set for the trial Mr. Tutt, having 
 been delayed by an accident in the Subway, entered 
 the Criminal Courts Building only a moment or two 
 before the call of the calendar. Somewhat preoccu- 
 pied, he did not notice the numerous Chinamen who 
 dawdled about the entrance or the half dozen who 
 crowded with him into the elevator, but when Pat the 
 elevator man called, "Second floor ! — Part One to your 
 right ! — Part Two to the left !" .and he stepped out into 
 the marble-floored corridor that ran round the inside 
 of the building, he was confronted with an unusual 
 and somewhat ominous spectacle. 
 
 The entire hallway on two sides of the building was 
 lined with Chinamen! They sat there motionless as 
 blue-coated images, faces front, their hands in their 
 laps, their legs crossed beneath them. If anyone ap- 
 peared in the offing a couple of hundred pairs of glint- 
 ing eyes shifted automatically and followed him until 
 he disappeared, but otherwise no muscle quivered. 
 
 "Say," growled Hogan, Judge Bender's private at- 
 tendant, who was the first to run the gantlet, "those 
 Chinks are enough to give you the Willies ! Their eyes 
 scared me to death, sticking me through the back !" 
 
 Even dignified Judge Bender himself as he stalked 
 along the hall, preceded by two police officers, was not 
 immune from a slight feehng of uncanniness, and he 
 instinctively drew his silken robe round his legs that 
 
62 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 it might not come into contact with those curious slip- 
 pers with felt soles that protruded across the marble 
 slabs. 
 
 "Eyes right!" They had picked him up the instant 
 he stepped out of the private elevator — ^the four hun- 
 dred of them. If he turned and looked they were 
 seemingly not watching him, but if he dropped his 
 glance they swung back in a single moment and fo- 
 cused themselves upon him. And every one of them 
 probably had a gun hidden somewhere in his baggy 
 pants ! The judge confessed to not liking these foreign 
 homicide cases. You never could tell what might 
 happen or when somebody was going to get the death, 
 sign. There was Judge Deasy — ^he had the whole 
 front of his house blown clean out by a bomb! That 
 had been a^ close call ! And these Chinks — with their 
 secret oaths and rituals — they'd think nothing at all 
 of jabbing a knife into you. He didn't fancy it at all 
 and, as he hurried along, supremely conscious of the 
 deadly cumulative effect of those beady eyes, he fancied 
 it less and less. What was there to prevent one of 
 them from getting right up in court and putting a 
 bullet through you ? He shivered, recalling the recent 
 assassination of a judge upon the bench by a Hindu 
 whom he had sentenced. When he reached his robing 
 room he sent for Captain Phelan. 
 
 "See here, captain," he directed sharply, "I want 
 you to keep all those Chinamen out in the corridor; 
 understand?" 
 
 "I've got to let some of 'em in, judge," urged Phelan. 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 63 
 
 "You've got to have an interpreter — ^ahd there's a Chi- 
 nese lawyer associated with Tutt & Tutt — and of 
 course Mr. O'Brien has to have a couple of 'em so's 
 he'll know what's going on. Y' see, judge, the On 
 Gee Tong is helping the prosecution against the Hip 
 Leongs, so both sides has to be more or less repre- 
 sented." 
 
 "Well, make sure none of *em is armed," ordered 
 Judge Bender. "I don't hke these cases." 
 
 Now the judge, being recently elected and unfamiliar 
 with the situation, did not realize that nothing could 
 have been farther from the Oriental mind or intention 
 than an attack upon the officers engaged in the ad- 
 ministration 'of local justice, whom they regarded 
 merely as nuisances. What these Chinamen supremely 
 desired was to be allowed to settle their own affairs in 
 their own historic and traditional way — the way of 
 the revolver, the silken cord, the knife and the iron 
 bar. Once enmeshed in Anglo-Saxon juridical pro- 
 cedure, to be sure, they were not averse to letting it 
 run its course on the bare chance that it might auto- 
 matically accomplish their revenge. But they dis- 
 trusted it, being brought up according- to a much more 
 effective system — one which when it wanted to punish 
 anybody simply reached out, grabbed him by the pig- 
 tail, yanked him to his knees and sliced off his head. 
 This so-called American justice was all talk — ^words, 
 words, vrords ! From their point of view judges, jury- 
 men and prosecutors were useless pawns in life's game 
 of chess. Perhaps they are ! Who knows ! 
 
64 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 When Judge Bender entered the court room it was, 
 in spite of his injunction, full of blue blouses. A special 
 panel of two hundred talesmen filled the first half 
 dozen rows of benches, the others being occupied by 
 witnesses both Chinese and white, policemen and the 
 miscellaneous human flotsam and jetsam that always 
 manages somehow or other to find its way to a murder 
 trial. Inside the rail O'Brien, the assistant district at- 
 torney, was busy in conversation with three cueless 
 Chinamen in American clothes. At the bar sat Mock 
 Hen with Mr. Tutt beside him, flanked by Wong Get, 
 Tutt, Bonnie Doon and Buddha. 
 
 The judge beckoned Mr. Tutt and O'Brien to the 
 front of the bench. 
 
 "Is there any chance of disposing of this case by a 
 plea?" he inquired. 
 
 O'Brien looked expectantly at Mr. Tutt, who shook 
 his head. The judge shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Well, how long is it going to take?" 
 
 "About six weeks," answered the old lawyer quietly, 
 
 "What !" ejaculated judge and prosecutor in unison, 
 
 "A day or two less, perhaps," affirmed Mr. Tutt, 
 "but, likely as not, considerably longer." 
 
 "I shall cut it down as much as I can," announced 
 the judge, appalled at the prospect. "I shall not per- 
 mit this trial to be dragged out indefinitely." 
 
 "Nothing would please me better, Your Honor," 
 bowed Mr. Tutt with the shadow of a smile. "Shall 
 we proceed to select the jury?" 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 65 
 
 The accuracy of Mr. Tutt's prophecy as to the prob- 
 able length of the trial was partially demonstrated 
 when it developed that most of the talesmen had a 
 pronounced antipathy to Chinese murder cases, and a 
 deep-rooted prejudice against the race as a whole. In 
 fact, a certain subconscious influence affecting most of 
 them was formulated by the thirty-ninth talesman to 
 be rejected, who, in a moment of resentment, burst 
 forth, "I don't mind trying decent American criminals, 
 but I hold it isn't any part of a citizen's duty to try 
 Chinamen!" and was promptly struck off the jury Hst. 
 
 "I say, chief," disgustedly declared O'Brien to Peck- 
 ham at the noon recess as they clinked glasses over the 
 bar at Font's, "you've handed me a ripe, juicy Messina 
 all right! I won't be able to get a jury. We've been 
 at it since ten o'clock and we haven't lured a single 
 sucker into the box !" 
 
 "What's the matter?" inquired the D. A. appre- 
 hensively. 
 
 "I can't quite make out," answered O'Brien. "But 
 most of 'em seem to have a sort of idea that to kill a 
 Chinaman ain't a crime but a virtue !" 
 
 "Well, don't tell anybody," whispered Peckham, "but 
 I'm somewhat of that way of thinking myself. Set 'em 
 up again, John !" 
 
 However, by invoking the utmost celerity a jury was 
 at last selected and sworn at the end of the nineteenth 
 day of the trial. As a jury O'Brien confidentially ad- 
 mitted to Peckham it wasn't much! But what could 
 you expect of a bunch who were willing to swear that 
 
66 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 they hadn't any prejudice against a Chink and would 
 as soon acquit him as a white man? The truth was 
 that they were all gentlemen who, having lost their 
 jobs, were willing to swear to anything that would 
 bring them in two dollars a day. The more days the 
 better ! And it is historic fact that during the sixty- 
 nine days of Mock Hen's prosecution not one of them 
 protested at being kept away from his wife and chil- 
 dren, his business or his pleasure. On the contrary 
 they all slumbered peacefully from ten until four — 
 and when the trial ended, on the whole they rather re- 
 gretted that it was over, the only genuine opinion re- 
 garding the case being that the Chinks were all as 
 funny as hell and that Mr. Tutt was a bully old boy. 
 
 The evidence respecting the death of the unfortunate 
 Quong Lee made little impression upon them. Seem- 
 ingly they regarded the story much as they did that of 
 Elisha and the bears or Bel and the dragon — as a sort 
 of apocryphal narrative which they were required to 
 listen to, but in no wise bound, to believe. They were 
 much interested in Quong's suit of chain mail, how- 
 ever, and from time to time awoke to enjoy the various 
 yerbal encounters between the judge and Mr. Tutt. As 
 factors in the proceedings they did not count, except 
 to receive their two dollars per diem, board, lodging 
 and hack fare. 
 
 The trial of Mock Hen being conducted in a foreign 
 language, the first judicial step was the swearing of an 
 interpreter. The On Gees had promptly produced one, 
 whom O'Brien told the court was a very learned man; 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 67 
 
 a graduate of the Imperial University at Peking, and a 
 Son of the Sacred Dragon. Be that as it may, he was 
 not prepossessing in his appearance and Mr. Tutt as- 
 sured Judge Bender that far from being what the dis- 
 trict attorney pretended, the man was a well-known 
 gambler, who made his living largely by blackmail. 
 He might be a son of a dragon or he might not; any- 
 way he was a son of Belial. An interpreter was the 
 conduit through which all the evidence must pass. If 
 the official were biased or corrupt the testimony would 
 be distorted, colored or suppressed. 
 
 Now he — Mr. Tutt — had an interpreter, the well- 
 known Dr. Hong Su, against whom nothing could be 
 said, and upon whose fat head rested no imputation of 
 partiality; a graduate of Harvard, a writer of note, 
 a 
 
 O'Brien sprang to his feet: "My interpreter says 
 your interpreter is an opium smuggler, that he mur- 
 dered his aunt in Hong Kong, that he isn't a doctor at 
 all, and that he never graduated from anything except 
 a chop-suey joint," he interjected. 
 
 "This is outrageous!" cried Mr. Tutt, palpably 
 shocked at such language. 
 
 "Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" groaned Judge Bender. 
 "What am I to do? I don't know anything about 
 these men. One looks to me about the same as the 
 other. The court has no time to inquire into their 
 antecedents. They may both be learned scholars or 
 they may each be what the other says he is — I don't 
 
68 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 know. Btit we've got to begin to try this case some- 
 time." 
 
 It was finally agreed that in order that there might 
 be no possible question of partiality there should be 
 two interpreters — one for the prosecution and one 
 for the defense. Both accordingly were sworn and the 
 first witness, Ah Fong, was called. 
 
 "Ask him if he understands the nature of an oath," 
 directed O'Brien. 
 
 The interpreter for the state turned to Ah Fong and 
 said something sweetly to him in multitudinous words* 
 
 Instantly Doctor Su rose indignantly. The other in- 
 terpreter was not putting the question at all, but tell- 
 ing the witness what to say. Moreover, the other in- 
 terpreter belonged to the On Gee Tong. He stood 
 waving his arms and gobbling like an infuriated turkey 
 while his adversary replied in similar fashion. 
 
 "This won't do!" snapped the judge. "This trial 
 will degenerate into nothing but a cat fight if we are 
 not careful." Then a bright idea suggested itself to 
 his Occidental mind. "Suppose I appoint an official 
 umpire to say which of the other two interpreters is 
 correct — and let them decide who he shall be?" 
 
 This proposition was received with grunts of sat- 
 isfaction by the two antagonists, who conferred to- 
 gether with astonishing amiability and almost immedi- 
 ately conducted into the court room a tall, emaciated 
 Chinaman who they alleged was entirely satisfactory 
 to both of them. He was accordingly sworn as a third 
 interpreter, and the trial began again. 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 69 
 
 It was observed that thereafter there was no dispute 
 whatever regarding the accuracy of the testimony, and 
 as each interpreter was paid for his services at the rate 
 of ten dollars a day it was rumored that the whole af- 
 fair had been arranged by agreement between the two 
 societies, which divided the money, amounting to some 
 eighteen hundred dollars, between them. But, as 
 O'Brien afterward asked Peckham, How in thunder 
 could you tell? 
 
 The court's troubles had, however, only begun. Ah 
 Fong was a whimsical-looking person, who gave an 
 impression of desiring to make himself generally agree- 
 able. He was, of course, the star witness — if a China- 
 man can ever be a star witness — and presumably had 
 been carefully schooled as to the manner in which he 
 should give his testimony. He and he alone had seen 
 the whole tragedy from beginning to end. He it was, 
 if anybody, who would tuck Mock Hen comfortably 
 into his cofBn. 
 
 The problem of the interpreters having been solved 
 Fong settled himself comfortably in the witness chair, 
 crossed his hands upon his stomach and looked com- 
 placently at Mock Hen. 
 
 "Well, now let's get along," adjured His Honor. 
 "Swear the witness." 
 
 Mr. Tutt immediately rose. 
 
 "If the court please," said he, "I object to the swear- 
 ing of the witness unless it is made to appear that he 
 will regard himself as bound by the oath as adminis- 
 
70 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 tered. Now this man is a Chinaman. I should like to 
 ask him a preliminary question or two." 
 
 "That seems fair, Mr. O'Brien," agreed the court. 
 "Do you see any reason why Mr. Tutt shouldn't inter- 
 rogate the witness?" 
 
 "Oh, let me qualify my own witness!" retorted 
 O'Brien fretfully. "Ah Fong, will you respect the 
 oath to testify truthfully, about to be administered 
 to you?" 
 
 Jhe interpreter delivered a broadside of Chinese at 
 Ah Fong, who listened attentively and replied at equal 
 length. Then the interpreter went at him again, and 
 again Ah Fong affably responded. It was intermin- 
 able. 
 
 The two muttered and chortled at each other until 
 O'Brien, losing patience, jumped up and called out: 
 "What's all this? Can't you ask him a simple ques- 
 tion and get a simple answer? This isn't a debating 
 society." 
 
 The interpreter held up his hand, indicating that 
 the prosecutor should have patience. 
 
 "Ah-yarychoo-aroo-yung-ung-loy-oa-yaoo-chu-a-oy- 
 ah-ohay-tching !" he concluded. 
 
 "A-yah-oy-a-yoo-oy-ah-chuck-uh-ung-loy-oo-ayah-a- 
 yoo-chung-chung-szt-oo-aha-oy-ou-ungaroo - yah - yah- 
 yah!" replied Ah Fong. 
 
 "Thank heaven, that's over!" sighed O'Brien. 
 
 The interpreter drew himself up to his full height 
 
 "He says yes," he declared dramatically. 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 71 
 
 "It's the longest yes I ever heard !" audibly remarked 
 the foreman, who was feeling his oats. 
 
 "Does not that satisfy you?" inquired the court of 
 Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "I am sorry to say it does not!" replied the latter. 
 "Mr. O'Brien has simply asked whether he will keep 
 his oath. His reply sheds no light on whether his re- 
 ligious belief is such that it would obligate him to 
 respect an oath." 
 
 "Well, ask him yourself !" snorted O'Brien. 
 
 "Ah Fong, do you believe in any god?" inquired 
 Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "He says yes," answered the interpreter after the 
 usual interchange. 
 
 "What god do you believe in ?" persisted Mr. Tutt. 
 
 Suddenly Ah Fong made answer without the inter- 
 vention of the interpreter: 
 
 "When I in this country," he replied complacently 
 in English, "I b'lieve Gees Clist; when I in China I 
 b'lieve Chinese god." 
 
 "Does Your Honor hold that an obliging acquies- 
 cence in local theology constitutes such a religious 
 ^ belief as to make this man's oath sacred?" inquired 
 Mr. Tutt. 
 
 The judge smiled. 
 
 "I don't see why not!" he declared. "There isn't 
 any precedent so far as I am aware. But he says he 
 believes in the Deity. Isn't that enough?" 
 
 "Nat unless he believes that the Deity will punish 
 
7« TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 him if he breaks his oath," answered Mr. Tutt. "Let 
 me try him on that?" 
 
 "Ah Fong, do you think God will punish you if you 
 tell a lie?" 
 
 Fong looked blank. The interpreter fired a few 
 salvos. 
 
 "He says it makes a difference the kind of oath." 
 
 "Suppose it is a promise to tell the truth?" 
 
 "He says what kind of a promise ?" 
 
 "A promise on the Bible," answered Mr. Tutt pa- 
 tiently. 
 
 "He says what god you mean!" countered the in- 
 terpreter. 
 
 "Oh, any god!" roared Mr. Tutt. 
 
 The interpreter, after a long parley, made reply. 
 
 "Ah Fong says there is no binding oath except on 
 a chicken's head." 
 
 Judge Bender, O'Brien and Mr. Tutt gazed at one 
 another helplessly. 
 
 "Well, there you are !" exclaimed the lawyer. "Mr. 
 O'Brien's oath wasn't any oath at allj What kind of 
 a chicken's head?" 
 
 "A white rooster." 
 
 "Quite so!" nodded Mr. Tutt. "Your Honor, I ob- 
 ject to this witness being sworn by any oath or in any 
 form except on the head of a white rooster!" 
 
 "Well, I don't happen to have a white rooster about 
 me!" remarked O'Brien, while the jury rocked with 
 glee. "Ask him if something else won't do. A big 
 book for instance?" 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 73 
 
 The interpreter put the question and then shook his 
 head. According to Ah Fong there was no virtue in 
 books whatever, either large or small. On some oc- 
 casions an oath could be properly taken on a broken 
 plate — also white — ^but not in murder cases. It was 
 chicken or nothing. 
 
 "Are you not willing to waive the formality of an 
 oath, Mr. Tutt?" asked the judge in slight impatience. 
 
 "And wave my client into the chair?" demanded 
 the lawyer. "No, sir !" 
 
 "I don't see what we can do except to adjourn court 
 until you can procure the necessary poultry," an- 
 nounced Judge Bender. "Even then we can't slaughter 
 them in court. We'll have to find some suitable 
 place!" 
 
 "Why. not kill one rooster and swear all the wit- 
 nesses at once?" suggested Mr. Tutt in a moment of 
 inspiration. 
 
 "My God, chief !" exclaimed O'Brien at four o'clock. 
 "There ain't a white rooster to be had anywhere! 
 Hens, yes! By the hundred! But roosters are ex- 
 tinct! Tomorrow will be the twenty-first day of this 
 prosecution and not a witness sworn yet." 
 
 However, a poultryman was presently discovered 
 who agreed simply for what advertising there was in 
 it to furnish a crate of white roosters, a hatchet and a 
 headsman's block, and to have them in the basement 
 of the building promptly at ten o'clock. 
 
 Accordingly, at that hour Judge Bender convened 
 
74 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Part IX of the General Sessions in the court room and 
 then adjourned downstairs, where all the prospectivt 
 witnesses for the prosecution were lined up in a body 
 and told to raise their right hands. 
 
 Meantime Clerk McGuire was handed the hatchet, 
 and approached the coop with obvious misgivings. Ah 
 Fong had already given a dubious approval to the sex 
 and quality of the fowls inside and naught remained 
 but to submit the proper oath and remove the head of 
 the unfortunate victim. A large crowd of policemen, 
 witnesses, reporters, loafers, truckmen and others 
 drawn by the unusual character of the proceedings had 
 assembled and now proceeded without regard for the 
 requirements of judicial dignity to encourage McGuire 
 in his capacity of executioner, by profane shouts and 
 jeers, to do his deadly deed. 
 
 But the clerk had had no experience with chickens 
 and in bashfully groping for the selected rooster al- 
 lowed several other occupants of the crate to escape. 
 Instantly the air was filled with fluttering, squawking 
 fowls while fifty frenzied police officers and Chinamen 
 attempted vainly to reduce them to captivity again. In 
 the midst of the melee McGuire caught his rooster, 
 and fearful lest it should escape him managed some- 
 how to decapitate it. The body, however, had been 
 flopping round spasmodically several seconds upon the 
 floor before he realized that the oath had not been 
 administered, and his voice suddenly rose above the 
 pandemonium in an excited brogue. 
 
 "Hold up your hands, you ! You do' solemnly swear 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 75 
 
 that in the case of The People against Mock Hen you 
 will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the 
 truth so help you God!" 
 
 But the interpreter was at that moment engaged in 
 clasping to his bosom a struggling rooster and was 
 totally unable to fulfill his functions. Meantime the 
 jury, highly edified at this illustration of the adminis- 
 tration of justice, gazed down upon the spectacle from 
 the stairs. 
 
 "This farce has gone far enough!" declared Judge 
 Bender disgustedly. "We will return to the court 
 room. Put those roosters back where they belong!" 
 
 Once more the participants ascended to Part IX and 
 Ah Fong took his seat in the witness chair. The in- 
 terpreter's blouse was covered with pinfeathers and 
 one of his thumbs was bleeding profusely. 
 
 "Ask the witness if the oath that he has now taken 
 will bind his conscience?" directed the court. 
 
 Again the interpreter and Ah Fong held converse. 
 
 "He says," translated that official calmly, "that the 
 chicken oath is all right in China, but that it is no good 
 in United States, and that anyway the proper form of 
 words was not used." 
 
 "Good Lord !" ejaculated O'Brien. "Where am I ?" 
 
 "Me tell truth, all light," suddenly announced Ah 
 Fong in English. "Go ahead! Shoot!" And he 
 smiled an inscrutable age-long Oriental smile. 
 
 The jury burst into laughter. 
 
 "He's stringing you !" the foreman kindly informed 
 O'Brien, who cursed silently. 
 
76 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Go on, Mister District Attorney, examine the wit- 
 ness," directed the judge. "I shall permit no further 
 variations upon the established forms of procedure." 
 
 Then at last and not until then — on the morning of 
 the twenty-first day — did Ah Fong tell his simple story 
 and the jury for the first time learn what it was all 
 about. But by then they had entirely ceased to care, 
 being engrossed in watching Mr. Tutt at his daily 
 amusement of torturing O'Brien into a state of helpless 
 exasperation. 
 
 Ah Fong gave his testimony with a clarity of detail 
 that left nothing to be desired, and he was corroborated 
 in most respects by the Italian woman, who identified 
 Mock Hen as the Chinaman with the iron bar. Their 
 evidence was supplemented by that of Bull Neck Burke 
 and Miss Malone, who also were positive that they 
 had seen Mock running from the scene of the murder 
 at exactly four-one o'clock. 
 
 Mr. Tutt hardly cross-examined Fong at all, but 
 with Mr. Burke he pursued very different tactics, 
 speedily rousing the wrestler to such a condition of 
 fury that he was hardly articulate, for the old lawyer 
 gently hinted that Mr. Burke was inventing the whole 
 story for the purpose of assisting his friends in the 
 On Gee Tong. 
 
 "But I tell yer I don't know no Chinks!" bellowed 
 Burke, looking more like a bull than ever. "This here 
 Mock Hen run right by me. My goil saw him too. I 
 looked at me ticker to get the time !" 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 77 
 
 "Ah! Then you expected to be a witness for the 
 On GeeTong!" 
 
 "Naw ! I tell yer I was walkin' wit' me goil !" 
 
 "What is the lady's name?" 
 
 "Miss Malone." 
 
 "What is her occupation?" 
 
 "She's a gay burlesquer." 
 
 "A gay burlesquer?" 
 
 "Sure — champagne goil and gay burlesquer." 
 
 "A champagne girl!" 
 
 "Dat's what I said." 
 
 "You mean that she is upon the stage?" 
 
 "Sure— dat's it!" 
 
 "Oh!" Mr. Tutt looked relieved. 
 
 "What had you and Miss Malone been doing that 
 afternoon ?" 
 
 "I told yer— walkin'." 
 
 Mr. Tutt coughed slightly. 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 "Say, watcha drivin' at ?" 
 
 Mr. Tutt elevated his bushy eyebrows. 
 
 "How do you earn your living?" he demanded, 
 changing his method of attack. 
 
 Bull Neck allowed his head to sink still farther into 
 the vast bulk of his immense torso, strangely resem- 
 bling, in this position, the fabled anthropophagi whose 
 heads are reputed thus to "grow beneath their shoul- 
 ders." 
 
 Then throwing out his jaw he announced proudly be- 
 tween set teeth : "I'm a perfessor of physical sculture!" 
 
78 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 The jury sniggered. Mr. Tutt appeared politely 
 puzzled. 
 
 "A professor of what?" 
 
 "A perfessor of physical sculture!" repeated Bull 
 Neck with great satisfaction. 
 
 "Oh! A professor of physical sculpture!" ex- 
 claimed Mr. Tutt, light breaking over his wrinkled 
 countenance. "And what may that be?" 
 
 Bull Neck looked round disgustedly at the jury as if 
 to say : "What ignorance !" 
 
 "Trainin' an' developin' prominent people!" he ex- 
 plained. 
 
 "Um !" remarked Mr. Tutt. "Who invited you to 
 testify in this case?" 
 
 "Mr. Mooney." 
 
 "Oh, you're a friend of Mooney's! That is all!" 
 
 Now it is apparent from these questions and an- 
 swers that Mr. Burke had testified to nothing to his 
 discredit and had conducted himself as a gentleman 
 and a sportsman according to his best lights. Yet 
 owing to the subtle suggestions contained in Mr. Tutt's 
 inflections and demeanor the jury leaped unhesitatingly 
 to the conclusion that here was a man so ignorant and 
 debased that if he were not deliberately lying he was 
 being made a cat's-paw by the police in the interest of 
 the On Gee Tong. 
 
 Miss Malone fared even worse, for after a prelimin- 
 ary skirmish she flatly refused to give Mr. Tutt or the 
 jury 'any information whatever regarding her past 
 life, while Mooney, of course, labored from the begin- 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 79 
 
 ning to the end of his testimony under the curse of 
 being a policeman, one of that class whom most jury- 
 men take pride in saying they hold in natural distrust. 
 In a word, the white witnesses to the dastardly murder 
 of Quong Lee created a general impression of unre- 
 liability upon the minds of the jury, who wholly failed 
 to realize the somewhat obvious truth that the witnesses 
 to a crime in Chinatown will naturally if not inevitably 
 be persons who either reside in or frequent that lo- 
 cality. 
 
 Twenty-four days had now been consumed in the 
 trial, and as yet no Chinese witnesses except Ah Fong 
 had been called. Now, however, they appeared in co- 
 horts. Though Moone], had sworn that the streets 
 were practically empty at the time of the homicide 
 forty-one Chinese witnesses swore positively that they 
 had been within easy view, claiming variously to have 
 been behind doors, peeking through shutters, at upper 
 windows and even on the roofs. All had identified 
 Mock Hen as the murderer, and none of them had ever 
 heard of either the On Gee or the Hip Leong Tong! 
 Mr. Tutt could not shake them upon cross-examina- 
 tion, and O'Brien began to show signs of renewed con- 
 fidence. Each testified to substantially the same story 
 and they occupied seventeen full days in the telling, so 
 that when the prosecution rested, forty-two days had 
 been consumed since the first talesman had been called. 
 The trial had sunk into a dull, unbroken monotony, as 
 Mr. Tutt said, of the "vain repetitions of the heathen." 
 Yet the police and the district attorney had done all 
 
8o TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 that could reasonably have been expected of them. 
 They were simply confronted by the very obvious fact 
 ■ — a condition and not a theory — that the legal processes 
 of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence are of slight avail in 
 dealing with people of another race. 
 
 Now it is possible that even had Mr. Tutt put in no 
 defense whatever the jury might have refused to con- 
 vict, for there was a curious air of unreality surround- 
 ing the whole affair. It all seemed somehow as if — 
 assuming that it had ever taken place at all — it had oc- 
 curred in some other world and in some other age. 
 Perhaps under what might have been practically a di- 
 rection of the court a verdict of conviction might have 
 been returned — but it is doubtful. The more witnesses 
 testified to exactly the same thing in precisely the same 
 words the less likely it appeared to be. 
 
 But Mr. Tutt was taking no chances and, upon the 
 forty-third day of the trial, at a nod from the bench, 
 he opened his case. Never had he been more serious; 
 never more persuasive. Abandoning every suggestion 
 of frivolity, he weighed the testimony of each white 
 witness and pointed out its obvious lack of probative 
 value. Not one, he said, except the Italian woman, had 
 had more than a fleeting glance of the face of the man 
 now accused of the crime. Such an identification was 
 useless. The Chinamen were patently lying. They 
 had not been there at all ! Would any member of the 
 jury hang a dog, even a yellow one, on such testimony? 
 Of course not ! Much less a human being. The people 
 had called forty witnesses to prove that Mock Hen 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 8i 
 
 had killed Quong Lee. It made no difference. The 
 On Gee could have just as easily produced four hun- 
 dred. Moreover, Mr. Tutt did a very daring thing. 
 He pronounced all Chinese testimony in an American 
 court of justice as absolutely valueless, and boasted 
 that for every Chinaman who swore Mock Hen was 
 guilty he would bring forward two who would swear 
 him innocent. 
 
 The thing was, as he had carefully explained to 
 Bonnie Doon, to prove that Mock was a good China- 
 man and, if the jury did not believe that there was 
 any such animal, to convince them that it was pos- 
 sible. His first task, however, was to polish off the 
 Chinese testimony by calling the witnesses who had 
 been secured under the guidance of Wong Get. He 
 admitted afterward that in view of the exclusion law 
 he had not supposed there were so many Chinamen in 
 the United States, for they crowded the corridors 
 and staircases of the Criminal Courts Building, ar- 
 riving in companies — ^the Wong family, the Mocks, 
 the Fongs, the Lungs, the Sues, and others of the 
 sacred Hip Sing Society from near at hand and from 
 distant parts — from Brooklyn and Flatbush, from 
 Flushing and Far Rockaway, from Hackensack and 
 Hoboken, from Trenton and Seranton, from Buffalo 
 and Saratoga, from Chicago and St. Louis, and each 
 and every one of them swore positively upon the sev- 
 ered neck of the whitest rooster — the broken fragments 
 of the whitest of porcelain plates — the holiest of books 
 — ^that he had been present in person at Fulton Market 
 
82 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 in New York City at precisely four-fifteen o'clock in 
 the afternoon and assisted Mock Hen, the defendant, 
 in selecting and purchasing a terrapin for stew. 
 
 Mr. Tutt grinned at the jury and the jury grinned 
 affectionately back at Mr. Tutt. Indeed, after the 
 length of time they had all been together they had 
 almost as much respect for him as for the judge 
 upon the bench. The whole court seemed to be a 
 sort of Tutt Club, of which even O'Brien was a 
 member. 
 
 "Now," said Mr. Tutt, "I will call a few witnesses to 
 show you what kind of a man this is whom these 
 highbinders accuse of the crime of murder!" 
 
 Mock, rolling his eyes heavenward, assumed an 
 expression of infantile helplessness and trust. 
 
 "Don't overdo it!" growled Tutt. "Just look kind 
 of gentle." 
 
 So Mock looked as gentle as a suckling dove while 
 two professors from Columbia University, three of 
 his landlords in his more reputable business enterprises, 
 the superintendent of the Rising Sun Mission, four 
 ex-police officers, a fireman, and an investigator from 
 the Society for the Suppression of Sin swore upon 
 Holy Writ and with all sincerity that Mock Hen was 
 not only a person of the most excellent character and 
 reputation but a Christian and a gentleman.. 
 
 And then Mr. Tutt played his trump card. 
 
 "I will call Miss Frances Duryea, of Hudson 
 House," he announced. "Miss Duryea, will you kindly 
 take the witness chair?" 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 83 
 
 Miss Fanny modestly rose from her seat in the rear 
 of the room and came forward. No one could for an 
 instant doubt the honesty and impartiality of this de- 
 voted middle-aged woman, who, surrendering the com- 
 forts and luxuries of her home uptown, to which she 
 was well entitled by reason of her age, was devoting 
 herself to a life of service. If a woman like that, 
 thought the jury, was ready to vouch for Mock's good 
 character, why waste any more time on the case ? But 
 Miss Fanny was to do much more. 
 
 "Miss Duryea," began Mr. Tutt, "do you know the 
 defendant?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; I do," she answered quietly. 
 
 "How long have you known him?" 
 
 "Six years." 
 
 "Do you know his reputation for peace and quiet?" 
 
 Miss Fanny half turned to the judge and then faced 
 the jury. 
 
 "He is one of the sweetest characters I have ever 
 known," she replied, "and I have known many " 
 
 "Oh, I object!" interrupted O'Brien. "This lady 
 can't be permitted to testify to anything like that. She 
 must be limited by the rules of evidence !" 
 
 With one movement the jury wheeled and glared 
 at him. 
 
 "I guess this lady can say anything she wants !" de- 
 clared the foreman chivalrously. 
 
 O'Brien shrank down in his seat. What was the 
 use! 
 
 "Go on, please," gently directed Mr. Tutt. 
 
84 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "As I was saying, Mr. Mock Hen is a very remark- 
 able character," responded Miss Fanny. "He is de- 
 voted to the mission and to us at the settlement. I 
 would trust him absolutely in regard to anything." 
 
 "Thank you," said Mr. Tutt, smiling benignly. 
 "Now, Miss Duryea, did you see Mock Hen at any 
 time on May sixth?" 
 
 Instantly the jury showed renewed signs of life. 
 May sixth?. That was the day of the murder. 
 
 "I did," answered Miss Fanny with conviction. "He 
 came to see me at Hudson House in the afternoon 
 and while we were talking the clock struck four." 
 
 The jury looked at one another and nodded. 
 
 "Well, I guess that settles this case!" announced 
 the foreman. 
 
 "Right !" echoed a talesman behind him. 
 
 "I object!" wailed O'Brien. "This is entirely im- 
 proper!" 
 
 "Quite so !" ruled Judge Bender sternly. "The jury- 
 men will not make any remarks!" 
 
 "But, Your Honor — ^we all agreed at recess there 
 was nothing in this case," announced the foreman. 
 "And now this testimony simply clinches it. Why go 
 on with it?" 
 
 "That's so !" ejaculated another. "Let us go, judge." 
 
 Mr. Tutt's weather-beaten face was wreathed in 
 smiles. 
 
 "Easy, gentlemen!" he cautioned. 
 
 The judge shrugged his shoulders, frowning. 
 
 "This is very irregular !" he said. 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 85 
 
 Then he beckoned to O'Brien, and the two whis- 
 pered together for several minutes, while all over the 
 court room on the part of those who had sat there so 
 patiently for sixty-nine days there was a prolonged 
 and ecstatic wriggling of arms and legs. Instinctively 
 they all knew that the farce was over. 
 
 The assistant district attorney returned to his table 
 but did not sit down. 
 
 "If the court please," he said rather wearily, "the 
 last witness. Miss Duryea, by her testimony, which I 
 personally am quite ready to accept as truthful, has 
 interjected a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt 
 into what otherwise would in my opinion be a case for 
 the jury. If Mock Hen was at Hudson House, nearly 
 two miles from Pell and Doyers Streets, at four o'clock 
 on the afternoon of the homicide, manifestly he could 
 not have been one of the assailants of Quong Lee at 
 one minute past four. I am satisfied that no jury 
 would convict " 
 
 "Not on your life !" snorted the foreman airily. 
 
 " ^and I therefore," went on O'Brien, "ask the 
 
 court to direct an acquittal." 
 
 In the grand banquet hall of the Shanghai and 
 Hongkong American-Chinese Restaurant, Ephraim 
 Tutt, draped in a blue mandarin coat with a tasseled 
 pill box rakishly upon his old gray head, sat beside 
 Wong Get and Buddha at the head of a long table 
 surrounded by three hundred Chinamen in their rich- 
 est robes of ceremony. Lanterns of party-colored glass 
 
86 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 swaying from gilded rafters shed a strange light upon 
 a silken cloth marvelously embroidered and laden 
 with the choicest of Oriental dishes, and upon the 
 pale faces of the Hip Leong Tong — the Mocks, the 
 Wongs, the Fongs and the rest — both those who had 
 testified and also those who had merely been ready if 
 duty called to do so, all of whom were now gathered 
 together to pay honor where they felt honor to be 
 due ; namely, at the shrine of Mr. Tutt. 
 
 Deft Chinese waiters slipped silently from guest to 
 guest with bird's-nest soup, guy soo main, mon goo 
 guy pan, shark's fin and lung bar made of shreds of 
 lobster, water chestnuts, rice and the succulent shoots 
 of the young bamboo, while three musicians in a cor- 
 ner sang through their noses a syncopated dirge. 
 "Wang-ang-ang-ang!" it rose and fell as Mr. Tutt, his 
 neck encircled by a wreath of lilies, essayed to manipu- 
 late a pair of long black chop-sticks. "Wang-ang-ang- 
 ang!" About him were golden limes, ginger in syrup, 
 litchi nuts, pickled leeches. 
 
 Then he felt a touch upon his shoulder and turned 
 to see Fong Hen, the slipper, standing beside him. It 
 was the duty of Fong Hen to drink with each guest — 
 more than that, to drink as much^ as each guest drank ! 
 He gravely offered Mr. Tutt a pony of rice brandy. 
 It was not the fiery lava he had anticipated, but a soft, 
 caressing nectar, fragrant as if distilled from celestial 
 flowers of the time of Confucius. The slipper swal- 
 lowed the same quantity at a gulp, bowed and passed 
 along. 
 
MOCK HEN AND MOCK TURTLE 87 
 
 Mr. Tutt vainly tried to grasp the fact that he was 
 in his own native city of New York. Long sleeves cov- 
 ered with red and purple dragons hid his arms and 
 hands, and below the collar a smooth tight surface of 
 silk across his breast made access to his pockets quite 
 impossible. In one of them reposed twenty one-thou- 
 sand-dollar bills — his fee for securing the acquittal of 
 Mock Hen. Yes, he was in New York! 
 
 The monotonous wail of the instruments, the pun- 
 gency of the incense, the subdued light, the humid 
 breath of the roses carried the thoughts of Mr. Tutt 
 far away. Before him, against the blue misty sun- 
 shine, rose the yellow temples of Peking. He could 
 hear the faint tintinnabulation of bells. He was wan- 
 dering in a garden fragrant with jasmine blossoms and 
 adorned with ancient graven stones and carved gilt 
 statues. The air was sweet. Mr. Tutt was very tired. 
 
 "Let him sleep!" nodded Buddha, deftly conveying 
 to his wrinkled lips a delicate morsel of guy yemg dun. 
 "Let him sleep! He has earned his sleep. He has 
 saved our face!" 
 
 It was after midnight when Mr. Tutt, heavily laden 
 with princely gifts of ivory and jade and boxes of 
 priceless teas, emerged from the side door of the 
 Shanghai and Hongkong American-Chinese Restau- 
 rant. The sky was brilliant with stars and the side- 
 walks of Doyers and Pell Streets were crowded with 
 pedestrians. Near by a lantern-bedecked rubber-neck 
 
88 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 wagon was in process of unloading its cargo of seekers 
 after the curious and unwholesome. On either side 
 of him walked Wong Get and Buddha. They had 
 hardly reached the corner when five shots echoed in 
 quick succession above the noise of the traffic and the 
 crowd turned with one accord and rushed in the direc- 
 tion from which he had just come. 
 
 Mr. Tutt, startled, stopped and looked back. Cour- 
 teously also stopped Wong Get and Buddha. A throng 
 was fast gathering in front of the Shanghai and Hong- 
 kong Restaurant. 
 
 Then Murtha appeared, shouldering his way roughly 
 through the mob. Catching sight of Mr. Tutt, he 
 paused long enough to whisper hoarsely in the lawyer's 
 ear : "Well, they got Mock Hen! Five bullets in him! 
 But if they were going to, why in hell couldn't they 
 have done it three months ago?" 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 
 
 "And it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her 
 words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; 
 that he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath 
 not come a razor upon mine head; ... if I be shaven, then 
 my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak and 
 be like any other man." — ^Judges xvi, 16, 17. 
 
 "Have you seen '76 Fed.' anywhere, Mr. Tutt?" in- 
 quired Tutt, appearing suddenly in the doorway of 
 his partner's office. 
 
 Mr. Tutt looked up from Page 364 of the opinion 
 he was perusing in "The United States vs. One Hun- 
 dred and Thirty-two Packages of Spirituous Liquors 
 and Wines." 
 
 "Got it here in front of me," he answered shortly. 
 "What do you want it for?" 
 
 Tutt looked over his shoulder. 
 
 "That's a grand name for a case, isn't it? 'Packages 
 of Wines !' " he chuckled. "I made a note once of a 
 matter entitled 'United States vs. Forty-three Cases 
 of Frozen Eggs' ; and of another called 'United States 
 vs. One Feather Mattress and One Hundred and Fifty 
 Pounds of Butter' — along in 197 Federal Reports, if I 
 remember correctly. And you recall that accident case 
 we had — Bump against the Railroad?" 
 
 "You can't tell me anything abouit names," re- 
 
90 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 marked Mr. Tutt. "I once tried a divorce action. 
 Fuss against Fuss; and another, Love against Love. 
 Do you really want this book ?" 
 
 "Not if you are using it," replied Tutt. "I just 
 wanted to show an authority to Mr. Sorg, the president 
 of the Fat and Skinny Club. You know our applica- 
 tion for a certificate of incorporation was denied yes- 
 terday by Justice McAlpin." 
 
 "No, I didn't know it," returned Mr. Tutt. "Why?" 
 "Here's his memorandum in the Law Journal," an- 
 swered his partner. "Read it for yourself" : 
 
 Matter of Fat and Skinny Club, Inc. This is an applica- 
 tion for approval of a certificate of incorporation as a mem- 
 bership corporation. The stated purposes are to promote 
 and encourage social intercourse and good fellowship and 
 to advance the interests of the community. The name se- 
 lected is the Fat and Skinny Club. If this be the most appro- 
 priate name descriptive of its membership it is better that 
 it remain unincorporated. Application denied. 
 
 "Now who says the law, isn't the perfection of com- 
 mon sense?" ruminated Mr. Tutt. "Its general prin- 
 ciples are magnificent." 
 
 "And yet," mused Tutt, "only last week Judge Mc- 
 Alpin granted the petition of one Solomon Swack- 
 hamer to change his name to Phillips Brooks Vander- 
 bilt. Is that right? Is that justice? Is it equity? I 
 ask you! — when he turns down the Fat and Skinnies?" 
 
 "Oh, yes it is," retorted Mr. Tutt. "When you con- 
 sider that Mr. Swackhamer could have assumed the 
 appellation of P. B. Vanderbilt or any other name he 
 chose without asking the court's permission at all." 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 91 
 
 "What!" protested Tutt incredulously. 
 "That's the law," returned the senior partner. "A 
 man can call himself what he chooses and change his 
 name as often as he likes — so long, of course, as he 
 doesn't do it to defraud. The mere fact that a statute 
 likewise gives him the right to apply to the courts to ac- 
 complish the same result makes no difference." 
 
 "Of course it might make him feel a little more com- 
 fortable about it to do it that way," suggested Tutt, 
 "Do you know, as long as I've practised law in this 
 town I've always assumed that one had to get permis- 
 sion to change one's name." 
 
 "You've learned something," said Mr. Tutt suavely. 
 "I hope you will put it to good account. Here's '76 
 Fed.' Take it out and console the Fat and Skinny Club 
 with it if you can." 
 
 Mr. Tutt surrendered the volume without apparent 
 regret and Tutt retired to his own office and to the 
 task of soothing the injured feelings of Mr. Sorg. 
 
 A simple-minded little man was Tutt, for all his pro- 
 fessional shrewdness and ingenuity. Like many a hero 
 of the battlefield and of the bar, once inside the palings 
 of his own fence he became modest, gentle, even timor- 
 ous. For Abigail, his wife, had no illusions about him 
 and did not affect to have any. To her neither Tutt 
 nor Mr. Tutt was any such great shakes. Had Tutt 
 dared to let her know of many of the schemes which 
 he devised for the profit or safety of his clients she 
 would have thought less of him still ; in fact, she might 
 have parted with him forever. In a sense Mrs. Tutt 
 
92 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 was an exacting woman. Though she somew4iat ^^ 
 luctantly consented to view the hours from nine a. m. 
 to five p. m. in her husband's day as belonging to the 
 law, she emphatically regarded the rest of the twenty- 
 four hours as belonging to her. 
 
 The law may be, as Judge Holmes has called it, "a 
 jealous mistress," but in the case of Tutt it was not 
 nearly so jealous as his wife. So Tutt was compelled 
 to walk the straight-and-narrow path whether he liked 
 it or not. On the whole he liked it well enough, but 
 there were times — usually in the spring — when without 
 being conscious of what was the matter with him he 
 mourned his lost youth. For Tutt was only forty- 
 eight and he had had a grandfather who had lived 
 strenuously to upward of twice that age. He was 
 vigorous, sprightly, bright-eyed and as hard as nails, 
 even if somewhat resembling in his contours the late 
 Mr. Pickwick. Mrs. Tutt was tall, spare, capable and 
 sardonic. She made Tutt comfortable, but she no 
 longer appealed to his sense of romance. Still she held 
 him. As the playwright hath said : "It isn't good looks 
 they want, but good nature; if a warm welcome won't 
 hold them, cold cream won't." 
 
 However, Tutt got neither looks nor cold cream. 
 His welcome, in fact, was warm only if he stayed out 
 too late, and then the later the warmer. His relation' 
 ship to his wife was prosaic, respectful. In his heart 
 of hearts he occasionally thought of her as exceedingly 
 unattractive. In a word Mrs. Tutt performed her 
 wifely functions in a purely matter-of-fact way. Any* 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 93 
 
 thing else would have seemed to her unseemly. She 
 dressed in a manner that would have been regarded as 
 conservative even on Beacon Hill. She had no inten- 
 tion of making an old fool of herself or of letting him 
 be one either. When people had been married thirty 
 years they could take some things for granted. Few 
 persons therefore had ever observed Mr. Tutt in the act 
 of caressing Mrs. Tutt ; and there were those who said 
 that he never had. Frankly, she was a trifle forbid- 
 ding: superficially not the sort of person to excite 
 a great deal of sentiment; and occasionally, as we 
 have hinted, in the spring Tutt yearned for a little 
 sentiment. 
 
 He did his yearning, however, entirely on the side 
 and within those hours consecrated to the law. In his 
 wife's society he yearned not at all. In her company he 
 carefully kept his thoughts and his language inside 
 the innermost circle of decorum. At home his talk was 
 entirely "Yea, yea," and "Nay, nay," and dealt prin- 
 cipally with politics and the feminist movement, in 
 which Abigail was deeply interested. 
 
 And by this we do not mean to suggest that at other 
 times or places Tutt was anything but conventionally 
 proper. He was not. He only yearned to be, well 
 knowing that he was deficient in courage if not in 
 everything else. 
 
 But habit or no habit, likely or unlikely, Mrs. Tutt 
 had no intention of taking any chances so far as Tutt 
 was concerned. If he did not reach home precisely at 
 six explanations were in order, and if he came in half 
 
94 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 an hour later he had to demonstrate his integrity be- 
 yond a reasonable doubt according to the established 
 rules of evidence. 
 
 Perhaps Mrs. Tutt did wisely to hold Tutt thus in 
 leash considering the character of many of the firm's 
 clients. For it was quite impossible to conceal the 
 nature of the practise of Tutt & Tutt; much of which 
 figured flamboyantly in the newspapers. Some women 
 would have taken it for granted under like circum- 
 stances that their husbands had acquired a touch at 
 least of the wisdom of the serpent even if they re- 
 mained quite harmless. Abigail countenanced no 
 thought of any demoralization in her spouse. To her 
 he was like the artist who smears himself and his 
 smock with paint while in his studio, but appears at 
 dinner in spotless linen without even a whiff of benzine 
 about him to suggest his occupation. So Tutt, though 
 hand and glove in his office with the most notorious 
 of the elite of Longacre Square, came home to supper 
 with the naivete and innocence of a theological student 
 for whom an evening at a picture show is the height 
 of dissipation. 
 
 Yet Tutt was no more of a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. 
 Hyde than most of us. Merely, his daily transition 
 was a little more abrupt. And when all is said and 
 done most of the devices invented by his fertile little 
 brain to further the interests of his clients were no 
 more worthy of condemnation than those put forward 
 by far higher-priced and much more celebrated attor- 
 neys. 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 95 
 
 Not that Mrs. Tutt was blind to the dangers to which 
 her husband by virtue of his occupation was exposed. 
 Far from it. Indeed she made it her business to pay 
 periodical visits to the office, ostensibly to see whether 
 or not it was properly cleaned and the windows washed, 
 but in reality — or at least so Tutt suspected — to find 
 out whether the personnel was entirely suitable for a 
 firm of their standing and particularly for a junior 
 partner of his susceptibilities. 
 
 But she never discovered anything to give her the 
 slightest cause for alarm. The dramatis personae of 
 the offices of Tutt & Tutt were characteristic of the 
 firm, none of their employees — except Miss Sond- 
 heim, the tumultuous-haired lady stenographer — and 
 Willie, the office boy, being under forty years of age. 
 
 When not engaged in running errands or fussing 
 over his postage-stamp album, Willie spent most of his 
 time teasing old Scraggs, the scrivener, an unsuccess- 
 ful teetotaler. A faint odor of alcohol emanated from 
 the cage in which he performed his labors and lent an 
 atmosphere of cheerfulness to what might otherwise 
 have seemed to Broadway clients an unsympathetic 
 'environment, though there were long annual periods 
 during which he was as sober as a Kansas judge. 
 The winds of March were apt, however, to take hold 
 of him. Perhaps it was the spring in his case also. 
 
 The backbone of the establishment was Miss Flor- 
 ence Wiggin. In every law office there is usually some 
 one person who keeps the shop going. Sometimes it is 
 a man. If so, he is probably a sublimated stenographer 
 
96 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 or law clerk who, having worked for years to get him 
 self admitted to the bar, finds, after achieving that am 
 bition, that he has neither the ability nor the inclination 
 to brave the struggle for a livelihood by himself. Per- 
 chance as a youth he has had visions of himself arguing 
 test cases before the Court of Appeals while the leaders 
 of the bar hung upon his every word, of an office 
 crowded with millionaire clients and servile employees, 
 even as he is servile to the man for whom he labors for 
 a miserly ten dollars a week. 
 
 His ambition takes him by the hand and leads him 
 to high places, from which he gazes down into the 
 land of his future prosperity and greatness. The law 
 seems a mysterious, alluring, fascinating profession, 
 combining the romance of the drama with the gratifi- 
 cations of the intellect. He springs to answer his 
 master's bell ; he sits up until all hours running down 
 citations and making extracts from opinions ; he rushes 
 to court and answers the calendar and sometimes car- 
 ries the lawyer's brief case and attends him throughout 
 a trial. Three years go by — five — and he finds that he 
 is still doing the same thing. He is now a member of 
 the bar, he has become the managing clerk, he attends 
 to fairly important matters, engages the office force, 
 superintends transfers of title, occasionally argues a 
 motion. Five years more go by and perhaps his salary 
 is raised a trifle more. Then one. day he awakes to the 
 realization that his future is to be only that of a trusted 
 servitor. 
 
 Perchance he fs married and has a baby. The time 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 97 
 
 has come for him to choose whether he will go forth 
 and put his fortune to the test "to win or lose it all" 
 or settle down into the position of faithful legal hired 
 man. He is getting a bit bald, he has had one or two 
 tussles with his bank about accidental overdrafts. The 
 world looks pretty bleak outside and the big machine 
 of the law goes grinding on heartless, inevitable. Who 
 is he to challenge the future? The old job is fairly 
 easy ; they can't get on without him, they say ; here is 
 where he belongs; he knows his business — give him 
 his thirty-five hundred a year and let him stay ! 
 
 That is Binks, or Calkins, or Shivers, or any one of 
 those worried gray-haired men who sit in the outer 
 office behind a desk strewn with papers and make sure 
 that no mistakes have been made. To them every 
 doubtful question of practise is referred and they 
 answer instantly — sometimes wrongly, but always in- 
 stantly. They know the last day for serving the de- 
 murrer in Bilbank against Terwilliger and whether or 
 not you can tax a referee's fee as a disbursement in a 
 bill of costs ; they are experts on the precise form for 
 orders in matrimonial acticbs and the rule in regard to 
 filing a summons and comprint in Oneida County ; they 
 stand between the memberi of the firm and disagree- 
 able clients; they hire andRdischarge the office boys; 
 they do everything from v#iting a brief for the Su- 
 preme Court of the United States down to making the 
 contract with the window /leaners ; they are the only 
 lawyers who really know anything, and they were 
 once promising young men, who have found out at 
 
98 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 last that life and the Sunday-school books are very 
 far apart; but they run the works and make the law 
 a gentleman's profession for the rest of us. They are 
 always there. Others come, grow older, go away; but 
 they remain. Many of them drink. All of which 
 would be irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial if this 
 were not a legal story. 
 
 Scraggs had been one of these, but he had also been 
 one of those who drank, and now he was merely a 
 bookkeeper. Miss Wiggin reigned in his stead. 
 
 A woman and not a man kept Tutt & Tutt on the 
 map. When this sort of thing occurs it is usually be- 
 cause the woman in question is the ablest and very 
 likely also the best person in the outfit, and she assumes 
 the control of affairs by a process of natural selection. 
 Miss Wiggin was the conscience, if Mr. Tutt was the 
 heart, of Tutt & Tutt. Nobody, unless it was Mr. Tutt, 
 knew where she had come from or why she was work- 
 ing if at all in only a semi-respectable law office. With- 
 out her something dreadful would have happened to 
 the general morale. Everybody recognized that fact. 
 
 Her very appearance gave the place tone — neutral- 
 ized the faint odor of alcohol from the cage. For in 
 truth she was a fine-looking woman. Had she been 
 costumed by a Fifth Avenue dressmaker and done her 
 coiffure differently she would have been pretty. Be- 
 cause she drew her gray hair straight back from her 
 low forehead and tied it in a knob on the back of her 
 head, wore paper cuffs and a black dress, she looked 
 nearer fifty than forty-one, which she was. Two 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 99 
 
 hundred dollars would have taken twenty years off her 
 apparent age — a year for every ten dollars; but she 
 would not have looked a particle less a lady. 
 
 Her duties were ambiguous. She was always the 
 first to arrive at the office and was the only person per- 
 mitted to open the firm mail outside of its members. 
 She overlooked the books that Scraggs kept and sent 
 out the bills. She kept the key to the cash box and 
 had charge of the; safe. She made the entries in the 
 docket and performed most of the duties of a regular 
 managing clerk. She had been admitted to the ban 
 She checked up the charge accounts and on Saturdays 
 paid off the office force. In addition to all these things 
 she occasionally took a hand at a brief, drew most of 
 the pleadings, and kept track of everything that was 
 done in the various cases. 
 
 But her chief function, one which made her invalu- 
 able, was that of receiving the clients who came to 
 the office, and in the first instance ascertaining just 
 what their troubles were ; and she was so sympathetic 
 and at the same time so sensible that many a stranger 
 who casually drifted in and would otherwise just as 
 casually have drifted out again remained a permanent 
 fixture in the firm's clientele. Scraggs and William 
 adored her in spite of her being an utter enigma to 
 them. She was quiet but businesslike, of few words 
 but with a latent sense of humor that not infrequently 
 broke through the surface of her gravity, and she pro- 
 ceeded upon the excellent postulate that everyone with 
 whom she came in contact was actuated by the highest 
 
loo TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 sense of honor. She acted as a spiritual tonic to both 
 Mr. Tutt and Tutt — especially to the latter, who was 
 the more in need of it. If they were ever tempted to 
 stray across the line of professional rectitude her 
 simple assumption that the thing couldn't be done usu- 
 ally settled the matter once and for all. On delicate 
 questions Mr. Tutt frankly consulted her. Without 
 her, Tutt & Tutt would have been shysters; with her 
 they were almost respectable. She received a salary of 
 three thousand dollars a year and earned double that 
 amount, for she served where she loved and her. first 
 thought was of Tutt & Tutt. If you can get a woman 
 like that to run your law office do not waste any time or 
 consideration upon a man. Her price is indeed above 
 rubies. 
 
 Yet even Miss Wiggin could not keep the shadow 
 of the vernal equinox ofif the simple heart of the junior 
 Tutt. She had seen it coming for several weeks, had 
 scented danger in the way Tutt's childish eye had lin- 
 gered upon Miss Sondheim's tumultuous black hair 
 and in the rather rakish, familiar way he had guided 
 the ladies who came to get divorces out to the elevator. 
 And then there swam into his life the beautiful Mrs. 
 Allison, and for a time Tutt became not only hysteri- 
 cally young again, but — ^well, you shall see. 
 
 Yet, curiously enough, though we are a long way 
 from where thi? story opefied, it all goes back to 
 Phillips Brooks Vanderbilt and the Fat and Skinny 
 Club and the right to call ourselves by what names we 
 please. Moreover, as must be apparent, all that hap- 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH loi 
 
 pened occurred beyond Miss Wiggin's sphere of spirit- 
 ual influence. Yet, had it not, even she could not 
 have harnessed Leviathan or loosed the bands of Orion 
 — to say nothing of counteracting the effect of spring. 
 
 When Tutt returned with "76 Fed." after the de- 
 parture of Mr. Sorg he found his partner smoking 
 the usual stogy and gazing pensively down upon the 
 harbor. The immediate foreground was composed of 
 rectangular roofs of divers colors, mostly reddish, or- 
 namented with eccentrically shaped chimney pots, pent- 
 houses, skylights and water tanks, in addition to vari- 
 ous curious whistle-like protuberances from which 
 white wraiths of steam whirled and danced in the gay 
 breeze. Beyond, in the middle distance, a great high- 
 way of sparkling jewels led across the waves to the dis- 
 tant faintly green hills of Staten Island. Three tiny 
 aeroplanes wove invisible threads against the blue 
 woof of the sky above the New Jersey shore. It was 
 not a day to practise law at all. It was a day to He 
 on one's back in the grass and watch the clouds or 
 throw one's weight against the tugging helm of a rac- 
 ing sloop and bite the spindrift blown across her bows 
 — ^not a day for lawyers but for lovers! 
 
 "Here's '76 Fed.'," said Tutt. 
 
 "What's become of Sorg?" 
 
 "Gone. Mad. Says the whole point of the Fat and 
 Skinny Club is in the name." 
 
 "I fancy — from looking at Mr. Sorg — that that is 
 quite true," remarked Mr. Tutt. He paused and reach- 
 ing down into a lower compartment of his desk, lifted 
 
102 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 • out a tumbler and his bottle of malt extract, which he 
 placed carefully at his elbow and leaned back again 
 contemplatively. "Look here, Ttitt," he said. "I want 
 to ask you something. Is there anything the matter 
 with you?" 
 
 Tutt regarded him with the air of a small boy caught 
 peeking through a knot hole. 
 
 "Why, — no !" he protested lamely. "That is — noth- 
 ing in particular. I do feel a bit restless-— sort of 
 vaguely dissatisfied." 
 
 Mr. Tutt nodded sympathetically. 
 
 "How old are you, Tutt ?" 
 
 "Forty-eight." 
 
 "And you feel just at present as if life were 'flat, 
 stale and unprofitable?' " 
 
 "Why — yes; you might put it that way. The fact 
 is every day seems just like every other day. I don't 
 even get any pleasure out of eating. The very sight 
 of a boiled egg beside my plate at breakfast gives me 
 the willies. I can't eat boiled eggs any more. They 
 sicken me!" 
 
 "Exactly!" Mr. Tutt poured out a glass of the 
 malt extract. 
 
 "I feel the same way about a lot of things," Tutt 
 hurried on. "Special demurrers, for instance. They 
 bore me horribly. And supplementary proceedings get 
 most frightfully upon my nerves." 
 
 "Exactly!" repeated Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "What do you mean by 'exactly?' " snapped Tutt 
 
 "You're bored," explained his partner. 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 103 
 
 "Rather!" agreed Tutt. "Bored to death. Not 
 with anything special, you understand ; just everything. 
 I feel as if I'd like to do something devilish." 
 
 "When a man feels like that he better go to a doc- 
 tor," declared Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "A doctor !" exclaimed Tutt derisively. "What good 
 would a doctor do me ?" 
 
 "He might keep you from getting into trouble." 
 
 "Oh, you needn't be alarmed. I won't get into any 
 trouble." 
 
 "It's the dangerous age," said Mr. Tutt. "I've 
 known a lot of respectable married men to do the most 
 surprising things round fifty." 
 
 Tutt looked interested. 
 
 "Have you now?" he inquired. "Well, I've no 
 doubt it did some of 'em a world of good. Tell you 
 frankly sometimes I feel as if I'd rather like to take 
 a bit of a fling myself !" 
 
 "Your professional experience ought to be enough 
 to warn you of the dangers of that sort of experiment," 
 answered Mr. Tutt gravely. "It's bad enough when it 
 occurs inadvertently, so to speak, but when a man in 
 your condition of life deliberately goes out to invite 
 trouble if s a sad, sad spectacle." 
 
 "Do you mean to imply that I'm not able to take care 
 of myself?" demanded Tutt. 
 
 "I mean to imply that no man is too wise to be 
 made a fool of by some woman." 
 
 "That every Samson has his Delilah ?" 
 
 "If you want to put it that way — yes." 
 
104 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "And that in the end he'll get his hair cut?" 
 
 Mr. Tutt took a sip from the tumbler of malt and 
 relit his stogy. 
 
 "What do you know about Samson and Delilah, 
 Tutt?" he challenged. 
 
 "Oh, about as much as you do, I guess, Mr. Tutt," 
 answered his partner modestly. 
 
 "Well, who cut Samson's hair?" demanded the 
 senior member. 
 
 He emptied the dregs of the malt-extract bottle into 
 his glass and holding it to the light examined it criti- 
 cally. 
 
 "Delilah, of course!" ejaculated Tutt. 
 
 Mr. Tutt shook his head. 
 
 "There you go off at half-cock again, Tutt!" he re- 
 torted whimsically. "You wrong her. She did no 
 such thing." 
 
 "Why, I'll bet you a hundred dollars on it!" cried 
 Tutt excitedly. 
 
 "Make it a simple dinner at the Claridge Grill and 
 I'll go you." 
 
 "Done!" 
 
 There were four books on the desk near Mr. Tutt's 
 right hand — the New York Code of Civil Procedure, 
 an almanac, a Shakesperean concordance and a Bible. 
 
 "Look it up for yourself," said Mr. Tutt, waving 
 his arm with a gesture of the utmost impartiality. 
 "That is, if you happen to know in what part of Holy 
 Writ said Delilah is to be found." 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 105 
 
 Tutt followed the gesture and sat down at the 
 opposite side of the desk. 
 
 "There!" he exclaimed, after fumbling over the 
 leaves for several minutes. "What did I tell you? 
 Listen, Mr. Tutt! It's in the sixteenth chapter of 
 Judges : 'And it came to pass, when she pressed him 
 daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul 
 was vexed unto death ; That he told her all his heart, 
 and said unto her. There hath not come a razor upon 
 mine head.' Um — um." 
 
 "Read on, Tutt!" ordered Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "Um. 'And when Delilah saw that he had told her 
 all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the 
 Philistines, saying. Come up this once.' Um-um." 
 
 "Yes, go on!" 
 
 " 'And she made him sleep upon her knees ; and she 
 called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the 
 seven locks of his head.' Well, I'll be hanged!" ex- 
 claimed Tutt. "Now, I would have staked a thousand 
 dollars on it. But look here, you don't win ! Delilah 
 did cut Samson's hair — through her agent. 'Qui facit 
 per alwm facit per se!' " 
 
 "Your point is overruled," said Mr. Tutt. "A bar- 
 ber cut Samson's hair. Let it beia lesson to you never 
 to take anything on hearsay. Always look up your 
 authorities yourself. Moreover" — and he looked se- 
 verely at Tutt — "the cerebral fluid — ^like malt extract 
 — tends to become cloudy with age." 
 
 "Well, anyhow, I'm no Samson," protested Tutt. 
 "And I haven't met anyone that looked like a Delilah. 
 
io6 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 I guess after the procession of adventuresses that have 
 trailed through this office in the last twenty years I'm 
 reasonably safe." 
 
 "No man is safe," meditated Mr. Tutt. "For the 
 reason that no man knows the power of expansion of 
 his heart. He thinks it's reached its limit — and then 
 he finds to his horror or his delight that it hasn't. To 
 put it another way, a man's capacity to love may be 
 likened to a thermometer. At twenty-five or thirty he 
 meets some young person, falls in love with her, thinks 
 his amatory thennometer has reached the boiling-point 
 and accordingly marries her. In point of fact it 
 hasn't — it's only marking summer heat — ^hasn't even 
 registered the temperature of the Jalood. Well, he goes 
 merrily on life's way and some fine day another lady 
 breezes by, and this safe and sane citizen, who sup- 
 poses his capacity for affection was reached in early 
 youth, suddenly discovers to his amazement that his 
 mercury is on the jump and presently that his old 
 thermometer has blown its top off." 
 
 "Very interesting, Mr. Tutt," observed Tutt after a 
 moment's silence. "You seem to have made something 
 of a study of these things." 
 
 "Only in a business way — only in a business way!" 
 Mr. Tutt assured him. "Now, if you're feeling stale 
 — and we all are apt to get that way this time of year 
 — why don't you take a run down to Atlantic City?" 
 
 Now Tutt woujd have liked to go to Atlantic City 
 could he have gone by himself, but the idea of taking 
 Abigail along robbed the idea of its attraction. She 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 107 
 
 had got more than ever on his nerves of late. But his 
 reply, whatever it might have been, was interrupted by 
 the announcement of Miss Wiggin, who entered at 
 that moment, that a lady wished to see him. 
 
 "She asked for Mr. Tutt," explained Minerva. "But 
 I think her case is more in your line," and she nodded 
 to Tutt. 
 
 "Good looking?" inquired Tutt roguishly. 
 
 "Very," returned Miss Wiggin. "A blonde." 
 
 "Thanks," answered Tutt, smoothing his hair; 
 "I'm on my way." 
 
 Now this free, almost vulgar manner of speech was 
 in reality foreign to both Tutt and Miss Wiggin and 
 it was born of the instont, due doubtless to some pecu- 
 liar juxtaposition of astral bodies in Cupid's horoscope 
 unknown to them, but which none the less had its influ- 
 ence. Strange things happen on the eve of St. Agnes 
 and on Midsummer Night — even in law offices. 
 
 Mrs. Allison was sitting by the window in Tutt's 
 office when he came in, and for a full minute he paused 
 upon the threshold while she pretended she did not 
 know that he was there. The deluge of sunlight that 
 fell upon her face betrayed no crack or wrinkle — ^no 
 flaw of any kind — in the white marble of its perfection. 
 It was indeed a lovely face, classic in the chiseling of 
 its transparent alabaster; and when she turned, her eyes 
 were like misty lakes of blue. Bar none, she was the 
 most beautiful creature — and there had been many— 
 that had even wandered into the offices of Tutt & Tutt, 
 He sought for a word. "Wonderful"; that was it, 
 
io8 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 she was "wonderful." His stale spirit soared in ec- 
 stasy, and left him tongue-tied. In vulgar parlance he 
 was rattled to death, this commonplace little lawyer 
 who for a score of years had dealt cynically with the 
 loves and lives of the flock of female butterflies who 
 fluttered annually in and out of the office. Throughout 
 that period he had sat unemotionally behind his desk 
 and listened in an aloof, cold, professional manner to 
 the stories of their wrongs as they sobbed or hissed 
 them forth. Wise little lawyer that he was, he had 
 regarded them all as just what they were and nothing 
 else — specimens of the Cyclopia. And he had not even 
 patted them upon the shoulder or squeezed their hands 
 when he had bade them good-by — maintaining always 
 an impersonal and dignified demeanor. 
 
 Therefore he was surprised to hear himself say in 
 soothing, almost cooing tones: 
 
 "Well, my dear, what can I do for you?" 
 
 Shades of Abigail ! "Well, my dear !" Tutt— Tutt ! 
 Tutt! 
 
 "I am in great trouble," faltered Mrs. Allison, gaz- 
 ing in misty helplessness out of her blue grottoes at 
 him while her beautiful red lips trembled. 
 
 "I hope I can help you !" he breathed. "Tell me all 
 about it ! Take your time. May I relieve you of your 
 wrap?" 
 
 She wriggled out of it gratefully and he saw for the 
 first time the round, slender pillar of her neck. What 
 a head she had — in its nimbus of hazy gold. What a 
 figure ! His forty-eight-year-old lawyer's heart trem- 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 109 
 
 bled under its heavy layer of half-calf dust. He found 
 difficulty in articulating. He stammered, staring at 
 her most shamelessly, both of which symptoms did she 
 fail to notice. She was used to them in the other sex. 
 Tutt did not know what was the matter with him. He 
 had in fact entered upon that phase at which the wise 
 man, be he old or young, turns and runs. 
 
 But Tutt did not run. In legal phrase he stopped, 
 looked and listened, experiencing a curious feeling of 
 expansion. This enchanting creature transmuted the 
 dingy office lined with its rows of calfskin bindings into 
 a golden grot in which he stood spellbound by the low 
 murmur of her voice. A sense of infinite leisure eman- 
 ated from her — a subtle denial of the ordinary respon- 
 sibilities — ^very relaxing and delightful to Tutt. But 
 what twitched his very heartstrings was the dimple 
 that came and went with that pathetic little twisted 
 smile of hers. 
 
 "I came to you," said Mrs. Allison, "because I knew 
 you were both kind and clever." 
 
 Tutt smiled sweetly. 
 
 "Kind, perhaps — not clever!" he beamed. 
 
 "Why, everyone says you are one of the cleverest 
 lawyers in New York," she protested. Then, raising 
 her innocent China-blue eyes to his she murmured, 
 "And I so need kindness!" 
 
 Tutt's breast swelled with an emotion which he was 
 forced to admit was not altogether avuncular — that 
 curious sentimental mixture that middle-aged men feel 
 of paternal pity. Platonic tende rness and protective- 
 
no TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 ness, together with all those other euphemistic syno- 
 nyms, that make them eager to assist the weak and 
 fragile, to try to educate and elevate, and particularly 
 to find out just how weak, fragile, uneducated and un- 
 elevated a helpless lady may be. But in spite of his 
 half century of experience Tutt's knowledge of these 
 things was purely vicarious. He could have told 
 another man when to run, but he didn't know when to 
 run himself. He could have saved another, himself 
 he could not save — at any rate from Mrs. Allison. 
 
 He had never seen anyone like her. He pulled his 
 chair a little nearer. She was so slender, so supple, so 
 — what was it ? — svelte ! And she had an air of child- 
 ish dignity that appealed to him tremendously. There 
 was nothing, he assured himself, of the vamp about her 
 at all. 
 
 "I only want to get my rights," she said tremu- 
 lously. "I'm nearly out of my mind. I don't know 
 what to do or where to turn!" 
 
 "Is there" — he forced himself to utter the word 
 with difficulty — "a — a man involved?" 
 
 She flushed and bowed her head sadly, and instantly 
 a poignant rage possessed him. 
 
 "A man I trusted absolutely," ,she replied in a low 
 voice. 
 
 "His name?" 
 
 "Winthrop Oaklander." 
 
 Tutt gasped audibly, for the name was that of one 
 of Manhattan's most distinguished families, the 
 founder of which had swapped glass beads and red- 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH iii 
 
 flannel shirts with the aborigines for what was now 
 the most precious water frontage in the world — and 
 moreover, Mrs. Allison informed Tutt, he was a 
 cltTgyman. 
 
 "I don't wonder you're surprised!" agreed Mrs. 
 Allison. 
 
 "Why — I — I'm — ^not surprised at all !" prevaricated 
 Tutt, at the same time groping for his silk handker- 
 chief. "You don't mean to say you've got a case 
 against this man Oaklander !" 
 
 "I have indeed !" she retorted with firmly compressed 
 lips. "That is, if it is what you call a case for a man 
 to promise to marry a woman and then in the end re- 
 fuse to do so." 
 
 "Of course it is!" answered Tutt. "But why on 
 earth wouldn't he?" 
 
 "He found out I had been divorced," she explained. 
 "Up to that time everything had been lovely. You see 
 he thought I was a widow." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 Mr. Tutt experienced another pang of resentment 
 against mankind in general. 
 
 "I had a leading part in one of the season's successes 
 on Broadway," she continued miserably. "But when 
 Mr. Oaklander promised to marry me I left the stage; 
 jind now — I have nothing!" 
 
 "Poor child!" sighed Tutt. 
 
 He would have liked to take her in his arms and 
 comfort her, but he always kept the door into the 
 outer office open on principle. 
 
112 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "You know, Mr. Oaklander is the pastor of St. 
 Lukes-Over-the-Way," said Mrs. Allison, "I thought 
 that maybe rather than have any publicity he might do 
 a little something for tne." 
 
 "I suppose you've got something in the way of evi- 
 dence, haven't you ? Letters or photographs or some- 
 thing?" inquired Tutt, reverting absent-mindedly to 
 his more professional manner. ■ 
 
 "No," she answered. "We never wrote to one 
 another. And when we went out it was usually in 
 the evening. I don't suppose half a dozen people have 
 ever seen us together." 
 
 "That's awkward!" meditated Tutt, "if he denies 
 it." 
 
 "Of Qourse he will deny it!" 
 
 "You can't tell. He may not." 
 
 "Oh, yes, he will! Why, he even refuses to admit 
 that he ever met me!" declared Mrs. Allison indig- 
 nantly. 
 
 Now, to Tutt's credit be it said that neither at this 
 point nor at any other did any suspicion of Mrs. Alli- 
 son's sincerity enter his mind. For the first time in 
 his professional existence he accepted what a lady cli- 
 ent told him at its face value. Indeed he felt that no 
 one, not even a clergyman, could help loving so mirac- 
 ulous a woman, or that loving her one could refrain 
 from marrying her save for some religious or other 
 permanent obstacle. He was sublimely,, ecstatically 
 happy in the mere thought that he, Tutt, might be of 
 help to such a celestial being, and he desired no reward 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 113 
 
 other than the privilege of being her willing slave and 
 of reading her gratitude in those melting, misty eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Allison went away just before lunch time, leav- 
 ing her telephone number, her handkerchief, a pungent 
 odor of violet talc, and a disconsolate but highly ex- 
 cited Tutt. Never, at any rate within twenty years, 
 had he felt so young. Life seemed tinged with every 
 color of the spectrum. The radiant fact was that he 
 would — ^he simply had to — see her again. What he 
 might do for her professionally — all that aspect of the 
 affair was shoved far into the background of his mind. 
 His only thought was how to get her back into his office 
 at the earliest possible moment. 
 
 "Shall I enter the lady's name in the address book?" 
 inquired Miss Wiggin coldly as he went out to get a 
 bite of lunch. 
 
 Tutt hesitated. 
 
 "Mrs. Georgie Allison is her name," he said in a 
 detached sort of way. 
 
 "Address?" 
 
 Tutt felt in his waistcoat pocket. 
 
 "By George!" he muttered, "I didn't take it. But 
 her telephone number is Lincoln Square 9187." 
 
 To chronicle the details of Tutt's second blooming 
 would be needlessly to derogate from the dignity of the 
 history of Tutt & Tutt. There is a silly season in the 
 life of everyone — even of every lawyer — who can call 
 himself a man, and out of such silliness comes the 
 gravity of knowledge. Tutt found it necessary for his 
 new client to come to the office almost every day, and 
 
"4 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 as she usually arrived about the noon hour what was 
 more natural than that he should invite her out to 
 lunch? Twice he walked home with her. The tele- 
 phone was busy constantly. And the only thorn in 
 the rose of Tutt's delirious happiness was the fear lest 
 Abigail might discover something. The thought gave 
 him many an anxious hour, cost him several sleepless 
 nights. At times this nervousness about his wife al- 
 most exceeded the delight of having Mrs. Allison for a 
 friend. Yet each day he became on more and more 
 cordial terms with her, and the lunches became longer 
 and more intimate. 
 
 The Reverend Winthrop Oaklander gave no sign of 
 life, however. The customary barrage of legal let- 
 ters had been laid down, but without eliciting any re- 
 sponse. The Reverend Winthrop must be a wise one, 
 opined Tutt, and he began to have a hearty contempt 
 as well as hatred for his quarry. The first letter had 
 been the usual vague hint that the clergyman might 
 and probably would find it to his advantage to call at 
 the offices of Tutt & Tutt, and so on. The Reverend 
 Winthrop, however, did not seem to care to secure 
 said advantage whatever it might be. The second 
 epistle gave the name of the client and proposed a 
 friendly discussion of her affairs. No reply. The 
 third hinted at legal proceedings. Total silence. The 
 fourth demanded ten thousand dollars damages and 
 threatened immediate suit. 
 
 In answer to this last appeared the Reverend Win- 
 throp himself. He was a fine-looking young chap with 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 115 
 
 a clear eye — almost as blue as Georgie's— and a skin 
 even pinker than hers, and he stood six feet five in his 
 Oxfords and his fist looked to Tutt as big as a coconut. 
 
 "Are you the blackmailer who's been writing me 
 those letters?" he demanded, springing into Tutt's 
 office. "If you are, let me tell you something. You've 
 got hold of the wrong monkey. I've been dealing 
 with fellows of your variety ever since I got out of the 
 seminary. I don't know the lady you pretend to repre- 
 sent, and I never heard of her. If I get any more let- 
 ters from you I'll go down and lay the case before the 
 district attorney; and if he doesn't put you in jail 
 I'll come up here and knock your head off. Under- 
 stand ? Good day !" 
 
 At any other period in his existence Tutt could not 
 have failed to be impressed with the honesty of this 
 husky exponent of the church militant, but he was 
 drugged as by the drowsy mandragora. The blatant 
 defiance of this muscular preacher outraged him. This 
 canting hypocrite, this wolf in priest's clothing nlust be 
 brought to book. But how ? Mrs. Allison had admit- 
 ted the literal truth when she had told him that there 
 were no letters, no photographs. There was no use 
 commencing an action for breach of promise if there 
 was no evidence to support it And once the papers 
 were filed their bolt would have been shot. Some way 
 must be devised whereby the Reverend Winthrop Oak- 
 lander could be made to perceive that Tutt & Tutt 
 meant business, and — equally imperative — whereby 
 Georgie would be impressed with the fact that not 
 
ii6 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 for nothing had she come to them — ^that is, to him — 
 for help. 
 
 The fact of the matter was that the whole thing had 
 become rather hysterical. Tutt, though having nothing 
 seriously to reproach himself with, was constantly 
 haunted by a sense of being rather ridiculous and 
 doing something behind his wife's back. He told him- 
 self that his Platonic regard for Georgie was a noble 
 thing and did him honor, but it was an honor which 
 he preferred to wear as an entirely private decoration. 
 He was conscious of being laughed at by Willie and 
 Scraggs and disapproved of by Miss Wiggin, who was 
 very snippy to him. And in addition there was the 
 omnipresent horror of having Abigail unearth his phil- 
 andering. He now not only thought of Mrs. Allison 
 as Georgie, but addressed her thus, and there was quite 
 a tidy little bill at the florist's for flowers that he had 
 sent her. In one respect only did he exhibit even the 
 most elementary caution — ^he wrote and signed all his 
 letters to her himself upon the typewriter, and filed 
 copies in the safe. 
 
 "So there we are!" he sighed as he gave to Mrs. 
 Allison a somewhat expurgated, or rather emasculated, 
 version of the Reverend Winthrop's visit. "We have 
 got to hand him something hot or make up our minds 
 to surrender. In a word we have got to scare him — ' 
 Georgie." 
 
 And then it was that, like the apocryphal mosquito, 
 the Fat and Skinny Club justified its attempted exist- 
 ence. For the indefatigable Sorg made an unheralded 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 117 
 
 reappearance in the outer office and insisted upon see- 
 ing Tutt, loudly asserting that he had reason to believe 
 that if a new application were now made to another 
 judge — whom he knew — it would be more favorably 
 received. Tutt went to the doorway and stood there 
 barring the entrance and expostulating with him. 
 
 "All right !" shouted Sorg. "All right ! I hear you f 
 But don't tell me that a man named Solomon Swack- 
 hamer can change his name to Phillips Brooks Van- 
 derbilt and in the same breath a reputable body of 
 citizens be denied the right to call themselves what 
 they please !" 
 
 "He don't understand!" explained Tutt to Georgie, 
 who had listened with wide, dreamy eyes. "He don't 
 appreciate the difference between doing a thing as an 
 individual and as a group." 
 
 "What thing?" 
 
 "Why, taking a name." 
 
 "I don't get you," said Georgie. 
 
 "Sorg wanted to call his crowd the Fat and Skinny 
 Qub, and the court wouldn't let him — ^thought it 
 was silly." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "But he could have called himself Mr. Fat or Mr. 
 Skinny or Mr. Anything Else without having to ask 
 anybody Oh, I say!" 
 
 Tutt had stiffened into sculpture. 
 
 "What is it?" demanded Georgie, fascinated. 
 
 "I've got an idea," he cried. "You can call your- 
 
ii8 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 self anything you like. Why not call yourself Mrs. 
 Winthrop Oaklander?" 
 
 "But what good would that do?" she asked vaguely. 
 
 "Look here!" directed Tutt. "This is the surest 
 thing you know ! Just go up to the Biltmore and regis- 
 ter as Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander. You have a perfect 
 legal right to do it. You could call yourself Mrs. 
 Julius Caesar if you wanted to. Take a room and stay 
 there until our young Christian soldier ofiPers you a 
 suitable inducement to move along. Even if you're 
 violating the law somehow his first attempt to make 
 trouble for you will bring about the very publicity he 
 is anxious to avoid. Why, it's marvelous — and abso- 
 lutely safe ! They can't touch you. He'll come across 
 inside of two hours. If he doesn't a word to the re- 
 porters will start things in the right direction." 
 
 For a moment Mrs. Allison looked puzzled. Then 
 her beautiful face broke into an enthusiastic classic 
 smile and she laid her little hand softly on his arm. 
 
 "What a clever boy you are — Sammy!" 
 
 A subdued snigger came from the direction of the 
 desk usually occupied by William. Tutt flushed. It 
 was one thing to call Mrs. Allison "Georgie" in pri- 
 vate and another to have her "Sammy" him within 
 hearing of the office force. And just then Miss Wiggin 
 passed by with her nose slightly in the air. 
 
 "What a perfectly wonderful idea!" went on Mrs. 
 Allison rapturously. "A perfectly w&nderful idea!" 
 
 Then she smiled a strange, mysterious, significant 
 smile that almost tore Tutt's heart out by the roots. 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 119 
 
 "Listen, Sammy," she whispered, with a new light 
 in those beautiful eyes. "I want five thousand dollars.' ' 
 
 "Five?" 'rtepeated Tutt simply, "I thought you 
 wanted ten thousand!" 
 
 "Only five from you, Sammy!" 
 
 "Me !" he gagged. 
 
 "You— dearest!" 
 
 Tutt turned blazing hot; then cold, dizzy and sea- 
 sick. His sight was slightly blurred. Slowly he groped 
 for the door and closed it cautiously. 
 
 "What — are — ^you — talking about?" he choked, 
 though he knew perfectly well. 
 
 Georgie had thrown herself back in the leather 
 chair by his desk and had opened her gold mesh-bag. 
 
 "About five thousand dollars," she replied with the 
 careful enunciation of a New England schoolmistress. 
 
 "What five thousand dollars?" 
 
 "The five you're going to hand me before I leave 
 this office, Sammy darling," she retorted dazzlingly. 
 
 Tutt's head swam and he sank weakly into his swivel 
 chair. It was incredible that he, a veteran of the crim- 
 inal bar, should have been so tricked. Instantly, as 
 when a reagent is injected into a retort of chemicals 
 and a precipitate is formed leaving the previously 
 cloudy liquid like crystal, Tutt's addled brain cleared. 
 He was caught ! The victim of his own asininity. He 
 dared not look at this woman who had wound him 
 thus round her finger, innocent as he was of any 
 wrongdoing; he was ashamed to think of his wife. 
 
I20 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "My Lord!" he murmured, realizing for the first 
 time the depth of his weakness. 
 
 "Oh, it isn't as bad as that!" she laughed. "Remem- 
 ber you were going to charge Oaklander ten thousand. 
 This costs you only five. Special rates for clergymen 
 and lawyers !" 
 
 "And suppose I don't choose to give it to you ?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "Listen here, you funny little man !" she answered in 
 caressing tones that made him writhe. "You'd stand 
 for twenty if I insisted on it. Oh, don't jump! I'm 
 not going to. You're getting ofif easy — too easy. But 
 I want to stay on good terms with you. I may need 
 you sometime in my business. Your certified check 
 for five thousand dollars — and I leave you." 
 
 She struck a match and started to light a tiny gold- 
 tipped cigarette. 
 
 "Don't!" he gasped. "Not in the office." 
 
 "Do I get the five thousand?" 
 
 He ground his teeth, not yet willing to concede 
 defeat. 
 
 "You silly old bird !" she said. "Do you know how 
 many times you've had me down here in your office 
 in the last three weeks? Fifteen. How many times 
 you've taken me out to lunch? Ten. How often 
 you've called me on the telephone? Eighty-nine I 
 How many times you've sent me flowers? Twelve. 
 How many letters you've written me? Eleven! Oh, 
 I realize they're typewritten, but a photograph enlarge- 
 ment would show they were typed in your office. Every 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 121 
 
 typewriter has its own individuality, you know. Your 
 clerks and office boy have heard me call you Sammy. 
 Why, every time you've moved with me beside you 
 someone has seen you. That's enough, isn't it? But 
 now, on top of all that, you go and hand me exactly 
 what I need on a gold plate." 
 
 He gazed at her stupidly. 
 
 "Why, if now you don't give me that check I shall 
 simply go up tp the Biltmore and register as Mrs. Sam- 
 uel Tutt. I shall take a room and stay there until you 
 offer me a proper inducement to move on." She giggled 
 delightedly. "It's marvelous — absolutely safe," she 
 quoted. "They can't touch me. You'll come across 
 inside of two hours. If you don't a word to the re- 
 porters will start things in the right direction." 
 
 "Don't!" he groaned. "I must have been crazy. 
 That was simply blackmail !" 
 
 "That's exactly what it was!" she agreed. "There 
 aren't any letters except these typewritten ones, or pho- 
 tographs, or any evidence at all; but you're going to 
 give me five thousand dollars just the same. Just so 
 that your wife won't know what a silly old fool you've 
 been. Where's your check book, Sam ?" 
 
 Tutt pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk and 
 slowly removed his personal check book. With his 
 fountain pen in his hand he paused and looked at her. 
 
 "Rather than give you another cent I'd stand the 
 gaff," he remarked defiantly. 
 
 "I know it," she answered. "I looked you up before 
 
122 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 I came here the first time. You are good for exactly 
 five thousand dollars." 
 
 Tutt filled out the check to cash and sent Willie 
 across the street to the bank to have it certified. The 
 sun was just sinking over the Jersey shore beyond the 
 Statue of Liberty and the surface of the harbor undu- 
 lated like iridescent watered silk. The clouds were torn 
 into golden-purple rents, and the air was so clear that 
 one could look down the Narrows far out to the open 
 sea. Standing there by the window Mrs. Allison 
 looked as innocently beautiful as the day Tutt had first 
 beheld her. After all, he thought, perhaps the experi" 
 ence had been worth the money. 
 
 Something of the same thought may have occurred 
 to the lady, for as she took the check and carefully 
 examined the certification she remarked with a dis- 
 tinct access of cordiality: "Really, Sammy, you're 
 quite a nice little man. I rather like you." 
 
 Tutt stood after she had gone watching the sunset 
 until the west was only a mass of leaden shadows. 
 Then, strangely relieved, he took his hat and started 
 out of the office. Somewhat to his surprise he found 
 Miss Wiggin still at her desk. 
 
 "By the way," she remarked casually as he passed 
 her, "what shall I charge that check to? The one you 
 just drew to cash for five thousand dollars ?" 
 
 "Charge it to life insurance," he said shortly. 
 
 He felt almost gay as he threaded his way through 
 the crowds along Broadway. Somehow a tremendofls 
 load had been lifted from his shoulders. He would 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 123 
 
 no longer be obliged to lead a sneaking, surreptitious 
 existence. He felt like shouting with joy now that he 
 could look the world frankly in the face. The genuine 
 agony he had endured during the past three weeks 
 loomed like a sickness behind him. He had been a 
 fool — and there was no fool like an old one. Just let 
 him get back to his old Abigail and there'd be no more 
 wandering-boy business for him! Abigail might not 
 have the figure or the complexion that Georgie had, 
 but she was a darn sight more reliable. Henceforth 
 she could have him from five p. m. to nine a. m. with- 
 out reserve. As for kicking over the traces, sowing 
 wild oats and that sort of thing, there was nothing 
 in it for him. Give him Friend Wife. 
 
 He stopped at the florist's and, having paid a bill of 
 thirty-six dollars for Georgie's flowers, purchased a 
 double bunch of violets and carried them home with 
 him. Abigail was watching for him out of the win- 
 dow. Something warm rushed to his heart at the sight 
 of her. Through the lace curtains she looked quite 
 trim. 
 
 "Hello, old girl !" he cried, as she opened the door. 
 "Waiting for me, eh? Here's a bunch of posies for 
 you." 
 
 And he kissed her on the dieek. 
 
 "That's more than I ever did to Georgie," he said 
 to himself. 
 
 "Why, Samuel !" laughed Abigail with a faded blush. 
 "Whafs ever got into you?" 
 
 "Dunno !" he retorted gaily. "The spring, I guess. 
 
124 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 What do you say to a little dinner at a restaurant and 
 then going to the play ?" 
 
 She bridled — being one of the generation who did 
 such , things — with pleasure. 
 
 "Seems to me you're getting rather extravagant," 
 
 She objected. "Still " 
 
 "Oh, come along!" he bullied her. "One of my 
 clients collected five thousand dollars this afternoon." 
 
 Tutt summoned a taxi and they drove to the bright- 
 est, most glittering of Broadway hostelries. Abigail 
 had never been in such a chic place before. It half 
 terrified and shocked her, all those women in dresses 
 that hardly came up to their armpits. Some of them 
 were handsome though. That slim one at the table 
 by the pillar, for instance. She was really quite lovely 
 with that mass of yellow-golden hair, that startlingly 
 white skin, and those misty China-blue eyes. And the 
 gentleman with her, the tall man with the pink cheeks, 
 was very handsome, too. 
 
 "Look, Samuel," she said, touching his hand. "See 
 that good-looking couple over there." 
 
 But Samuel was looking at them already — intently. 
 And just then the beautiful woman turned and, catch- 
 ing sight of the Tutts, smiled cordially if somewhat 
 roguishly and raised her glass, as did her companion. 
 Mechanically Tutt elevated his. The three drank to 
 one another. 
 
 "Do you know those people, Samuel ?" inquired Mrs. 
 Tutt somewhat stiffly. "Who are they?" 
 
 "Oh, those over there?" he repeated absently. "I 
 
SAMUEL AND DELILAH 125 
 
 don't really know what the lady's name is, she's been 
 down to our office a few times. But the man is Win- 
 throp Oaklander — and the funny part of it is, I always 
 thought he was a clergyman." 
 
 Later in the evening he turned to her between the 
 acts and remarked inconsequently : "Say, Abbie, do I 
 look as if I'd just had my hair cut?" 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 
 
 "Every dog is entitled to one bite."— Unreported opinion of 
 THE Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court. 
 
 "Now see here !" shouted Mr. Appleboy, coming out 
 of the boathouse, where he was cleaning his morning's 
 catch of perch, as his neighbor Mr. Tunnygate crashed 
 through the hedge and cut across Appleboy's parched 
 lawn to the beach. "See here, Tunnygate, I won't 
 have you trespassing on my place! I've told you so 
 at least a dozen times ! Look at the hole you've made 
 in that hedge, now ! Why can't you stay in the path ?" 
 
 His ordinarily good-natured countenance was suf- 
 fused with anger and perspiration. His irritation with 
 Mr. Tunnygate had reached the point of explosion. 
 Tunnygate was a thankless friend and he was a great 
 cross to Mr. Appleboy. Aforetime the two had been 
 intimate in the fraternal, taciturn intimacy character- 
 istic of fat men, an attraction perhaps akin to that 
 exerted for one another by celestial bodies of great 
 mass, for it is a fact that stout people do gravitate to- 
 ward one another — and hang or float in placid juxtapo- 
 sition, perhaps merely as a physical result of their 
 avoirdupois. So Appleboy and Tunnygate had swum 
 into each other's spheres of influence, either blown by 
 the dallying winds of chance or drawn by some mys- 
 
 i5fi 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 127 
 
 terious animal magnetism, and, being both addicted to 
 the delights of the soporific sport sanctified by Izaak 
 Walton, had raised unto themselves portable temples 
 upon the shores of Long Island Sound in that part of 
 the geographical limits of the Greater City known as 
 Throggs Neck. 
 
 Every morn during the heat of the summer months 
 Appleboy would rouse Turmygate or conversely Tun- 
 nygate would rouse Appleboy, jind each in his own 
 wobbly skiff would row out to the spot which seemed 
 most propitious to the piscatorial art. There, under 
 two green umbrellas, like two fat rajahs in their shak- 
 ing howdahs upon the backs of two white elephants, 
 the friends would sit in solemn equanimity awaiting 
 the evasive cunner, the vagrant perch or cod or the 
 occasional flirtatious eel. They rarely spoke and when 
 they did the edifice of their conversation — ^their Tower 
 of Babel, so to speak — was monosyllabic. Thus: 
 
 "Huh! Ain't had a bite!" 
 
 "Huh!" 
 
 "Huh!" 
 
 Silence for forty minutes. Then: "Huh! Had a 
 bite?" 
 
 "Nope!" 
 
 "Huh!" 
 
 That was generally the sum total of their inter- 
 change. Yet it satisfied them, for their souls were 
 in harmony. To them it was pregnant of unutterable 
 meanings, of philosophic mysteries more subtle than 
 those of the esoterics, of flowers and poetry, of bird- 
 
128 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 song and twilight, of all the nuances of softly whis- 
 pered avowals, of the elusive harmonies of love's half- 
 fainting ecstasy. 
 
 "Huh!" 
 
 "Huh!" 
 
 And then into this Eden — only not by virtue of the 
 excision of any vertebra such as was originally neces- 
 sary in the case of Adam — burst woman. There was 
 silence no longer. The air was rent with clamor ; for 
 both Appleboy and Tunnygate, within a month of one 
 another, took unto themselves wives. Wives after 
 their own image ! 
 
 For a while things went well enough ; it takes ladies 
 a few weeks to find out each other's weak points. But 
 then the new Mrs.' Tunnygate unexpectedly yet unde- 
 niably began to exhibit the serpent's tooth, the adder's 
 tongue or the clovdn hoof — as the reader's literary tra- 
 ditions may lead him to prefer. For no obvious reason 
 at all she conceived a violent hatred of Mrs. Appleboy, 
 a hatred that waxed all the more virulent on account of 
 its object's innocently obstinate refusal to comprehend 
 or recognize it. Indeed Mrs. Tunnygate found it so 
 difficult to rouse Mrs. Appleboy into a state of belliger- 
 ency sufficiently interesting that she soon transferred 
 her energies to the more worthy task of making Apple- 
 boy's life a burden to him. 
 
 To this end she devoted herself with a truly Machia- 
 vellian ingenuity, devising all sorts of insults, irr'ita- 
 tions and annoyances, and adding to the venom of her 
 tongue the inventive cunning of a Malayan witch doc- 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 129 
 
 tor. The Appleboys' flowerpots mysteriously fell off 
 the piazza, their thole-pins disappeared, their milk bot- 
 tles vanished, Mr. Appleboy's fish lines acquired a 
 habit of derangement equaled only by barbed-wire en- 
 tanglements, and his clams went bad ! But these things 
 might have been borne had it not been for the crown- 
 ing achievement of her malevolence, the invasion of the 
 Appleboys' cherished lawn, upon which they lavished 
 all that anxious tenderness which otherwise they might 
 have devoted to a child. 
 
 It was only about twenty feet by twenty, and it was 
 bordered by a hedge oi moth-eaten privet, but anyone 
 who has ever attempted to induce a blade of grass to 
 grow upon a sand dune will fully appreciate the devil- 
 try of Mrs. Tunnygate's malignant mind. Already 
 there was a horrid rent where Tunnygate had floun- 
 dered through at her suggestion in order to save going 
 round the pathetic grass plot which the Appleboys had 
 struggled to create where Nature had obviously in- 
 tended a floral vacuum. Undoubtedly it had been the 
 sight of Mrs. Appleboy with her small watering pot 
 patiently encouraging the recalcitrant blades that had 
 suggested the malicious thought to Mrs. Tunnygate 
 that maybe the Appleboys didn't own that far up the 
 beach. They didn't— that was the mockery of it. Like 
 many others they had built their porch on their boun- 
 dary line, and, as Mrs. Tunnygate pointed out, they 
 were claiming to own something that wasn't theirs. 
 So Tunnygate, in daily obedience to his spouse, forced 
 his way through the hedge to the beach, and daily 
 
130 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 the wrath of the Appleboys grew until they were driven 
 almost to desperation. 
 
 Now. when the two former friends sat fishing in 
 their skiffs they either contemptuously ignored one 
 another or, if they "Huh-Huhedl" at all the "Huhs!" 
 resembled the angry growls of infuriated beasts. The 
 worst of it was that the Appleboys couldn't properly 
 do anything about it. Tunnygate had, as Mrs. Tunny- 
 gate sneeringly pointed out, a perfect legal right to 
 push his way through the hedge and tramp across the 
 lawn, and she didn't propose to allow the Appleboys 
 to gain any rights by proscription, either. Not much ! 
 
 Therefore, when Mr. Appleboy addressed to Mr. 
 Tunnygate the remarks with which this story opens, 
 the latter insolently replied in words, form or sub- 
 stance that Mr. Appleboy could go to hell. More- 
 over, as he went by Mr. Appleboy he took pains to kick 
 over a clod of transplanted sea grass, nurtured by Mrs. 
 Appleboy as the darling of her bosom, and designed 
 to give an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bare 
 and unconvincing surface of sand. Mr. Appleboy 
 almost cried with vexation. 
 
 "Oh !" he ejaculated, struggling for words to express 
 the full content of his feeling. "Gosh, but you're — 
 mean!" 
 
 He hit it! Curiously enough, that was exactly the 
 word! Tunnygate was mean — and his meanness was 
 second only to that of the fat hippopotama, his wife. 
 
 Then, without knowing why, for he had no formu- 
 lated ideas as to the future, and probably wily in- 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 131 
 
 tended to try to scare Tunnygate with vague threats, 
 Appleboy added : "I warn you not to go through that 
 hedge again! Understand — I warn you! And if you 
 do I won't be responsible for the consequences!" 
 
 He really didn't mean a thing by the words, and 
 Tunnygate knew it. 
 
 "Huh !" retorted the latter contemptuously. "You 1" 
 
 Mr. Appleboy went inside the shack and banged the 
 door. Mrs. Appleboy was peeling potatoes in the 
 kitchen-living room. 
 
 "I can't stand it !" he cried weakly, "He's driving 
 me wild!" 
 
 "Poor lamb!" soothed Mrs. Appleboy, peeling an 
 interminable rind. "Ain't that just a sweetie? Look! 
 It's most as long as your arm !" 
 
 She held it up dangling between her thumb and fore- 
 finger. Then, with a groan she dropped it at his feet. 
 "I know it's a real burden to you, deary !" she sighed. 
 
 Suddenly they both bent forward with startled eyes, 
 hypnotized by the peel upon the floor. 
 
 Unmistakably it spelt "dog"! They looked at one 
 another significantly. 
 
 "It is a symbol!" breathed Mrs. Appleboy in an awed 
 whisper. 
 
 "Whatever it is, it's some grand idea!" exclaimed 
 her husband. "Do you know anybody who's got one ? 
 I mean a — a " 
 
 "I know just what you mean," she agreed. "I 
 wonder we never thought of it before! But there 
 wouldn't be any use in getting any dog!" 
 
132 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Oh, no!" he concurred. "We want a real — dog!" 
 
 "One you know about!" she commented. 
 
 "The fact is," said he, rubbing his forehead, "if 
 they know; about 'em they do something to 'em. It 
 ain't so easy to get the right kind." 
 
 "Oh, we'll get one!" she encouraged him. "Now 
 Aunt Eliza up to Livomia used to have one. It 
 made a lot of trouble and they ordered her — the select- 
 men did — ^to do away with it. But she only pretended 
 she had — she didn't really — ^and I think she's got him 
 yet." 
 
 "Gee!" said Mr. Appleboy tensely. "What sort 
 was it?" 
 
 "A bull!" she replied. "With a big white face." 
 
 "That's the kind !" he agreed excitedly. "What was 
 its name?" 
 
 "Andrew,". she answered. 
 
 "That's a queer name for a dog!" he commented. 
 "Still, I don't care what his name is, so long as he's the 
 right kind of dog! Why don't you write to Aunt 
 Eliza to-night?" 
 
 "Of course Andrew may be dead," she hazarded. 
 "Dogs do die." 
 
 "Oh, I guess Andrew isn't dead !" he said hopefully, 
 "That tough kind of dog lasts a long" time. What will 
 you say to Aunt Eliza?" 
 
 - Mrs. Appleboy went to the dresser and took a pad 
 and pencil from one of the shelves. 
 ( "Oh, something like this," she answered, poising the 
 pencil over the pad in her lap: 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 133 
 
 "Dear Aunt Eliza : I hope you are quite well. It is 
 sort of lonely living down here on the beach and there 
 are a good 'many rough characters, so we are looking 
 for a dog for companionship and protection. Almost 
 any kind of healthy dog would do and you may be 
 sure he would have a good home. Hoping to see you 
 soon. Your affectionate niece, Bashemath." 
 
 "I hope she'll send us Andrew," said Appleboy fer- 
 vently. 
 
 "I guess she will !" nodded Bashemath. 
 
 "What on earth is that sign?" wrathfuUy de- 
 manded Mrs. Tunnygate one morning about a week 
 later as she looked across the Appleboys' lawn from 
 her kitchen window. "Can you read it, Herman?" 
 
 Herman stopped trying to adjust his collar and 
 went out on the piazza. 
 
 "Something about 'dog'," he declared finally. 
 
 "Dog!" she exclaimed. "They haven't got a dog!" 
 
 "Well," he remarked, "that's what the sign says: 
 'Beware of the dog' ! And there's something above it. 
 Oh! 'No crossing this property. Trespassing for- 
 bidden.' " 
 
 "What impudence !" avowed Mrs. Tunnygate. "Did 
 you ever know such people ! First they try and take 
 land that don't belong to them, and then they go and 
 lie about having a dog. Where are they, anyway?" 
 
 "I haven't seen 'em this morning," he answered. 
 "Maybe they've gone away and put up the sign so we 
 won't go over. Think that'll stop us!" 
 
134 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "In that case they've got another think comin'!" 
 she retorted angrily. "I've a good mind to have you 
 go over and tear up the whole place!" 
 
 "'N pull up the hedge?" he concurred eagerly. 
 "Good chance !" 
 
 Indeed, to Mr. Tunnygate it seemed the supreme 
 opportunity both to distinguish himself in the eyes 
 of his blushing bride and to gratify that perverse in- 
 stinct inherited from our cave-dwelling ancestors to 
 destroy utterly — in order, perhaps, that they may never 
 seek to avenge themselves upon us — those whom we 
 have wronged. Accordingly Mr. Tunnygate girded 
 himself with his suspenders, and with a gleam of 
 fiendish exultation in his eye stealthily descended from 
 his porch and crossed to the hole in the hedge. No 
 one was in sight except two barefooted searchers after 
 clams a few hundred yards farther up the beach and a 
 man working in a field half a mile away. The bay 
 shimmered in the broiling August sun and from a dis^ 
 tant grove came the rattle and wheeze of locusts. 
 Throggs Neck blazed in silence, and utterly silent was 
 the house of Appleboy. 
 
 With an air of bravado, but with a slightly acceler- 
 ated heartbeat, Tunnygate thrust himself through the 
 hole in the hedge and looked scornfully about the 
 Appleboy lawn. A fierce rage worked through his 
 veins. A lawn! What effrontery! What business 
 had these condescending second-raters to presume to 
 improve a perfectly good beach which was satisfactory 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 135 
 
 to other folks? He'd show 'em! He took a step in 
 the direction of the transplanted sea grass. Unex- 
 pectedly the door of the Appleboy kitchen opened. 
 
 "I warned you !" enunciated Mr. Appleboy with un- 
 natural calmness, which with another background 
 might have struck almost anybody as suspicious. 
 
 "Huh!" returned the startled Tunnygate, forced 
 under the circumstances to assume a nonchalance that 
 he did not altogether feel. "You !" 
 
 "Well," repeated Mr. Appleboy. "Don't ever say 
 I didn't!" 
 
 "Pshaw!" ejaculated Mr. Tunnygate disdainfully. 
 
 With premeditation and deliberation, and with un- 
 deniable malice aforethought, he kicked the nearest 
 bunch of sea grass several feet in the air. His violence 
 carried his leg high in the air and he partially lost his 
 equilibrium. Simultaneously a white streak shot from 
 beneath the porch and something like a red-hot poker 
 thrust itself savagely into an extremely tender part of 
 his anatomy. 
 
 "Ouch! O—o-oh!" he yelled in agony. "Oh!" 
 
 "Come here, Andrew!" said Mr. Appleboy mildly. 
 "Good doggy! Come here!" 
 
 But Andrew paid no attention. He had firmly af- 
 fixed himself to the base of Mr. Tunnygate's person- 
 ality without any intention of being immediately de- 
 tached. And he had selected that place, taken aim, 
 and discharged himself with an air of confidence and 
 skill begotten of lifelong experience. 
 
136 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Oh! O — o — oh!" screamed Tunny gate, turning 
 wildly and clawing through the hedge, dragging An- 
 drew after him. "Oh! O— oh!" 
 
 Mrs. Tunnygate rushed to the door in time to see 
 her spouse lumbering up the beach with a white object 
 gyrating in the air behind him. 
 
 "What's thp matter ?" she called out languidly. Then 
 perceiving the matter she hastily followed. The Apple- 
 boys were standing on their lawn viewing the whole 
 proceeding with ostentatious indifference. 
 
 Up the beach fled Tunnygate, his cries becoming 
 fainter and fainter. The two clam diggers watched 
 him curiously, but made no attempt to go to his assist- 
 ance. The man in the field leaned luxuriously upon 
 his hoe and surrendered himself to unalloyed delight. 
 Tunnygate was now but a white flicker against the 
 distant sand. His wails had a dying fall : "O^ — o — 
 oh!" 
 
 "Well, we warned him!" remarked Mr. Appleboy 
 to Bashemath with a smile in which, however, lurked 
 a slight trace of apprehension. 
 
 "We certainly did!" she replied. Then after a 
 moment she added a trifle anxiously : "I wonder what 
 will happen to Andrew!" 
 
 Tunnygate did not return. Neither did Andrew. 
 Secluded in their kitchen living-room the Appleboys 
 heard a motor arrive and through a crack in the door 
 saw it carry Mrs. Tunnygate away bedecked as for 
 some momentous ceremonial. At four o'clock, while 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 137 
 
 Appleboy was digging bait, he observed another motor 
 making its wriggly way along the dunes. It was fitted 
 longitudinally with seats, had a wire grating and was 
 marked "N. Y. P. D." Two policemen in uniform 
 sat in front. Instinctively Appleboy realized that the 
 gods had called him. His heart sank among the clams. 
 Slowly he made his way back to the lawn where the 
 wagon had stopped outside the hedge. 
 
 "Hey there !" called out the driver. "Is your name 
 Appleboy?" 
 
 Appleboy nodded. 
 
 "Put your coat on, then, and come along," directed 
 the other. "I've got a warrant for you." 
 
 "Warrant?" stammered Appleboy dizzily. 
 
 "What's that?" cried Bashemath, appearing at the 
 door. "Warrant for what?" 
 
 The officer slowly descended and handed Appleboy 
 a paper. 
 
 "For assault," he replied. "I guess you know what 
 for, all right!" 
 
 "We haven't assaulted anybody," protested Mrs. 
 Appleboy heatedly. "Andrew " 
 
 "You can explain all that to the judge," retorted 
 the cop. "Meantime put on your duds and climb in. 
 If you don't expect to spend the night at the station 
 you'd better bring along the deed of your house so 
 you can give bail." 
 
 "But who's the warrant for?" persisted Mi's. Ap- 
 pleboy. 
 
138 TUTT AND MR. TUTT, 
 
 "For Enoch Appleboy," retorted the cop wearily. 
 "Can't you read?" 
 
 "But Enoch didn't do a thing!" she declared. "It 
 was Andrew!" 
 
 "Who's Andrew?" inquired the officer of the law 
 mistrustfully. 
 
 "Andrew's a dog," she explained. 
 
 "Mr. Tutt," announced Tutt, leaning against his 
 senior partner's door jamb with a formal-looking 
 paper in his hand, "I have landed a case that will de- 
 light your legal soul." 
 
 "Indeed?" queried the elder lawyer. "I have never 
 differentiated between my legal soul and any other I 
 may possess. However, I assume from your remark 
 that we have been retained in a matter presenting some 
 peculiarly absurd, archaic or otherwise interesting doc- 
 trine of law?" 
 
 "Not directly," responded Tutt. "Though you will 
 doubtless find it entertaining enough ; but indirectly — 
 atmospherically, so to speak — it touches upon doctrines 
 of jurisprudence, of religion and of philosophy, re- 
 plete with historic fascination." 
 
 "Good !" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, laying down his stogy. 
 "What kind of a case is it?" 
 
 "It's a dog case!" said the junior partner, waving 
 the paper. "The dog bit somebody." 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, perceptibly brightening. 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 139 
 
 "Doubtless we shall find a precedent in Oliver Gold- 
 smith's famous elegy : 
 
 "And in that town a dog was found. 
 
 As many dogs there be, 
 Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, 
 
 And curs of low degree." 
 
 "Only," explained Tutt, "in this case, though the 
 man recovered of the bite, the dog refused to die !" 
 
 "And so they want to prosecute the dog? It can't 
 be done. An animal hasn't been brought to the bar 
 of justice for several centuries." 
 
 "No, no!" interrupted Tutt. "They don't " 
 
 "There was a case," went on Mr. Tutt reminiscently. 
 "Let me see — at Sauvigny, I think it was — about 1457, 
 when they tried a sow and three pigs for killing a 
 child. The court assigned a lawyer to defend her, but 
 like many assigned counsel he couldn't think of any- 
 thing to say in her behalf. As regards the little pigs 
 he did enter the plea that no animus was shown, that 
 they had merely followed the example of their mother, 
 and that at worst they were under age and irrespon- 
 sible. However, the court found them all guilty, and 
 the sow was publicly hanged in the market place." 
 
 "What did they do with the three little pigs?" in- 
 quired Tutt with some interest. 
 
 "They were pardoned on account of their extreme 
 youth," said Mr. Tutt, "and turned loose again — ^witK 
 a warning." 
 
 "I'm glad of that!" sighed Tutt. "Is that a real 
 case?" 
 
140 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Absolutely," replied his partner. "I've read it in 
 the Sauvigny records." 
 
 "I'll be hanged!" exclaimed Tutt. "I never knew 
 that animals were ever held personally responsible." 
 
 "Why, of course they were!" said Mr. Tutt. "Why 
 shouldn't they be? If animals have souls why shouldn't 
 they be responsible for their acts ?" 
 
 "But they haven't any souls!" protested Tutt. 
 
 "Haven't they now?" remarked the elder lawyer. 
 "I've seen many an old horse that had a great deal 
 more conscience than his master. And on general 
 principles wouldn't it be far more just and humane to 
 have the law deal with a vicious animal that had in- 
 jured somebody than to leave its punishment to an 
 irresponsible and arbitrary owner who might be guilty 
 of extreme brutality?" 
 
 "If the punishment would do any good — ^yes!" 
 agreed Tutt. 
 
 "Well, who knows?" meditated Mr. Tutt. "I 
 wonder if it ever does any good ? But anybody would 
 have to agree that responsibility for one's acts should 
 depend upon the degree of one's intelligence — and 
 from that point of view many of our friends are really 
 much less responsible than sheep." 
 
 "Which, as you so sagely point out, would, how- 
 ever, be a poor reason for letting their families punish 
 them in case they did wrong. Just think how such a 
 privilege might be abused I If Uncle John didn't be- 
 have himself as his nephews thought proper they could 
 simply set upon him and briskly beat him up." 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 141 
 
 "Yes, of course, the law even to-day recognizes the 
 right to exercise physical discipline within the family. 
 Even homicide is excusable, under Section 1054 of our 
 code, when committed in lawfully correcting a child 
 or servant." 
 
 "That's a fine relic of barbarism !" remarked Tutt. 
 "But the child soon passes through that dangerous zone 
 and becomes entitled to be tried for his offenses by a 
 jury of his peers; the animal never does." 
 
 "Well, an animal couldn't be tried by a jury of his 
 peers, anyhow," said Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "I've seen juries that were more like nanny goats 
 than men !" commentated Tutt. "I'd like to see some 
 of our clients tried by juries of geese or woodchucks." 
 
 "The field of criminal responsibility is the No Man's 
 Land of the law," mused Mr. Tutt. "Roughly, mental 
 capacity to understand the nature of one's acts is the 
 test, but it is applied arbitrarily in the case of human 
 beings and a mere point of time is taken beyond which, 
 irrespective of his actual intelligence, a man is held 
 accountable for whatever he does. Of course that is 
 theoretically unsound. The more intelligent a person 
 is the more responsible he should be held to be and 
 the higher the quality of conduct demanded of him by 
 his fellows. Yet after twenty-one all are held equally 
 responsible — unless they're actually insane. It isn't 
 equity! In theory no man or animal should be sub- 
 ject to the power of discretionary punishment on the 
 part of another— even his own father or master. I've 
 often wondered what earthly right we have to make 
 
142 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 the animals work for us — to bind them to slavery when 
 we denounce slavery as a crime. It would horrify us 
 to see a human being put up and sold at auction. Yet 
 we tear the families of animals apart, subject them to 
 lives of toil, and kill them whenever we see fit. We 
 say we do this because their intelligence is limited and 
 they cannot exercise any discrimination in their con- 
 duct, that they are always in the zone of irresponsibility 
 and so have no rights. But I've seen animals that 
 were shrewder than men, and men who were vastly less 
 intelligent than animals." 
 
 "Right-o!" assented Tutt. "Take Scraggs, for in- 
 stance. He's no more responsible than a chipmunk." 
 
 "Nevertheless, the law has always been consistent," 
 said Mr. Tutt, "and has never discriminated between 
 animals any more than it has between men on the 
 ground of varying degrees of intelligence. They used 
 to try 'em all, big and little, wild and domesticated, 
 mammals and invertebrates." 
 
 "Oh, come!" exclaimed Tutt. "I may not know 
 much law, but " 
 
 "Between 1 120 and 1740 they prosecuted in France 
 alone no less than ninety-two animals. The last one 
 was a cow." 
 
 "A cow hasn't much intelligence," observed Tutt. 
 
 "And they tried fleas," added Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "They have a lot!" commented his junior partner. 
 "I knew a flea once, who " 
 
 "They had a regular form of procedure," continued 
 Mr. Tutt, brushing the flea aside, "which was adhered 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 143 
 
 to with the utmost technical accuracy. You could try 
 an individual animal, either in person or by proxy, or 
 you could try a whole family, swarm or herd. If a 
 town was infested by rats, for example, they first as- 
 signed counsel — an advocate, he was called — and then 
 the defendants were summoned three times publicly 
 to appear. If they didn't show up on the third and 
 last call they were tried in absentia, and if convicted 
 were ordered out of the country before a certain date 
 under penalty of being exorcised." 
 
 "What happened if they were exorcised?" asked 
 Tutt curiously. 
 
 "It depended a good deal on the local power of 
 Satan," answered the old lawyer dryly. "Sometimes 
 they became even more prolific and destructive than 
 they were before, and sometimes they promptly died. 
 All the leeches were prosecuted at Lausanne in 1451. 
 A few selected representatives were brought into court, 
 tried, convicted and ordered to depart within a fixed 
 period. Maybe they didn't fully grasp their obliga- 
 tions or perhaps were just acting contemptuously, but 
 they didn't depart and so were promptly exorcised. 
 Immediately they began to die ofif and before long 
 there were none left in the country." 
 
 "I know some rats and mice I'd like to have exor- 
 cised," mused Tutt. 
 
 "At Autun in the fifteenth century the rats won 
 their case," said Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "Who got 'em off?" asked Tutt. 
 
 "M. Chassensee, the advocate appointed to defend 
 
144 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 them. They had been a great nuisance and were or- 
 dered to appear in court. But none of them turned up. 
 M. Chassensee therefore argued that a default should 
 not be taken because all the rats had been summoned, 
 and some were either so young or so old and decrepit 
 that they needed more time. The court thereupon 
 granted him an extension. However, they didn't ar- 
 rive on the day set, and this time their lawyer claimed 
 that they were under duress and restrained by bodily 
 fear— of the townspeople's cats. That all these cats, 
 therefore, should first be bound over to keep the peace! 
 The court admitted the reasonableness of this, but the 
 townsfolk refused to be responsible for their cats and 
 the judge dismissed the case !" 
 
 "What did Chassensee get out of it ?" inquired Tutt. 
 
 "There is no record of who paid him or what was 
 his fee." 
 
 "He was a pretty slick lawyer," observed Tutt. 
 "Did they ever try birds?" 
 
 "Oh, yes !" answered Mr. Tutt. "They tried a cock 
 at Basel in 1474 — for the crime of laying an egg." 
 
 "Why was that a crime?" asked Tutt. "I should 
 call it a tour de force." 
 
 "Be that as it may," said his partner, "from a cock's 
 egg is hatched the cockatrice, or basilisk, the glance of 
 whose eye turns the beholder to stone. Therefore 
 they tried the cock, found him guilty and burned him 
 and his egg together at the stake. That is why cocks 
 don't lay eggs now." 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 145 
 
 "I'm glad to know that," said Tutt. "When did 
 they give up trying animals?" 
 
 "Nearly two hundred years ago," answered Mr. 
 Tutt. "But for some time after that they continued 
 to try inanimate objects for causing injury to people. 
 I've heard they tried one of the first locomotives that 
 ran over a man and declared it forfeit to the crown as 
 a deodand." 
 
 "I wonder if you couldn't get 'em to try Andrew," 
 hazarded Tutt, "and maybe declare him forfeited to 
 somebody as a deodand." 
 
 "Deodand means 'given to God,' " explained Mr. 
 Tutt. 
 
 "Well, I'd give Andrew to God — if God would take 
 him," declared Tutt devoutly. 
 
 "But who is Andrew?" asked Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "Andrew is a dog," said Tutt, "who bit one Tunny- 
 gate, and now the Grand Jury have indicted not the 
 dog, as it is clear from your historical disquisition they 
 should have done, but the dog's owner. Mr. Enoch 
 Appleboy." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "Assault in the second degree with a dangerous 
 weapon." 
 
 "What was the weapon?" inquired Mr. Tutt simply. 
 
 "The dog." 
 
 "What are you talking about?" cried Mr. Tutt. 
 "What nonsense!" 
 
 "Yes, it is nonsense!" agreed Tutt. "But they've 
 
146 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 done it all the same. Read it for yourself!" And 
 he handed Mr. Tutt the indictment. 
 
 "The Grand Jury of the County of New York by 
 this indictment accuse Enoch Appleboy of the crime of 
 assault in the second degree, committed as follows: 
 
 "Said Enoch Appleboy, late of the Borough of 
 Bronx, City and County aforesaid, on the 21st day of 
 July, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hun- 
 dred and fifteen, at the Borough and County aforesaid, 
 with force and arms in and upon one Herman Tunny- 
 gate, in the peace of the State and People then and 
 there being, feloniously did willfully and wrongfully 
 make an assault in and upon the legs and body of him 
 the said Herman Tunnygate, by means of a certain 
 dangerous weapon, to wit : one dog, of the form, style 
 and breed known as 'bull,' being of the name of 'An- 
 drew,' then and there being within control of the said 
 Enoch Appleboy, which said dog, being of the name of 
 'Andrew,' the said Enoch Appleboy did then and there 
 feloniously, willfully and wrongfully incite, provoke, 
 and encourage, then and there being, to bite him, the 
 said Herman Tunnygate, by means whereof said dog 
 'Andrew' did then and there grievously bite the said 
 Herman Tunnygate in and upon the legs and body of 
 him, the said Herman Tunnygate, and the said Enoch 
 Appleboy thus then and there feloniously did willfully 
 and wrongfully cut, tear, lacerate and bruise, and did 
 then and there by the means of the dog 'Andrew' afore- 
 said feloniously, willfully and wrongfully inflict griev- 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 147 
 
 ous bodily harm upon the said Herman Tunnygate, 
 against the form of the statute in such case made and 
 provided, and against the peace of the People of the 
 State of New York and their dignity." 
 
 "That," asserted Mr. Tutt, wiping his spectacles, 
 "is a document worthy of preservation in the Con- 
 gressional Library. Who drew it?" 
 
 "Don't know," answered Tutt; "but whoever he was 
 he was a humorist !" 
 
 "It's no good. There isn't any allegation of scienter 
 in it," affirmed Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "What of it? It says he assaulted Tunnygate with 
 a dangerous weapon. You don't have to set forth 
 that he knew it was a dangerous weapon if you assert 
 that he did it willfully. You don't have to allege in 
 an indictment charging an assault with a pistol that 
 the defendant knew it was loaded." 
 
 "But a dog is different!" reasoned Mr. Tutt. "A 
 dog is not per se a dangerous weapon. Saying so 
 doesn't make it so, and that part of the indictment is 
 bad on its face — ^unless, to be sure, it means that he 
 hit him with a dead dog, which, it is clear from the 
 context that he didn't. The other part — ^that he set 
 the dog on him — ^lacks the aillegation that the dog was 
 vicious and that Appleboy knew it; in other words an 
 allegation of scienter. It ought to read that said Enoch 
 Appleboy 'well knowing that said dog Andrew was a 
 dangerous and ferocious animal and would, if incited, 
 provoked and encouraged, bite the legs and body of 
 
148 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 him the said Herman — did then and there feloniously, 
 willfully and wropgfully incite, provoke and encourage 
 the said Andrew, and so forth.' " 
 
 "I get you !" exclaimed Tutt enthusiastically. "Of 
 course an allegation of scienter is necessary! In other 
 words you could demur to the indictment for insuf- 
 ficiency?" 
 
 Mr. Tutt nodded. 
 r*^4"But in that case they'd merely go before the Grand 
 Jury and find another — a good one. It's much better 
 to try and knock the case out on the trial once and for 
 all." 
 
 "Well, the Appleboys are waiting to see you," said 
 Tutt. "They are in my office. Bonnie Doon got the 
 case for us off his local district leader, who's a member 
 of the same lodge of the Abyssinian Mysteries— Bon- 
 nie's been Supreme Exalted Ruler of the Purple Moun- 
 tain for over a year — and he's pulled in quite a lot of 
 good stuff, not all dog cases either! Appleboy's an 
 Abyssinian too." 
 
 "I'll see them," consented Mr. Tutt, "but I'm going 
 to have you try the case. I shall insist upon acting 
 solely in an advisory capacity. Dog trials aren't in 
 my line. There are some things which are infra dig 
 —even for Ephraim Tutt." 
 
 Mr. Appleboy sat stolidly at the bar of justice, pale 
 but resolute. Beside him sat Mrs. Appleboy, also pale 
 but even more resolute. A jury had been selected 
 without much manifest attention by Tutt, who had 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 149 
 
 nevertheless managed to slip in an Abyssinian brother 
 on the back row, and an ex-dog fancier for Number 
 Six. Also among those present were a delicatessen 
 man from East Houston Street, a dealer in rubber 
 novelties, a plumber and the editor of Baby's World. 
 The foreman was almost as fat as Mr. Appleboy, but 
 Tutt regarded this as an even break on account of the 
 size of Tunnygate. As Tutt confidently whispered to 
 Mrs. Appleboy, it was as rotten a jury as he could get. 
 
 Mrs. Appleboy didn't understand why Tutt should 
 want a rotten jury, but she nevertheless imbibed some 
 vicarious confidence from this statement and squeezed 
 Appleboy's hand encouragingly. For Appleboy, in 
 spite of his apparent calm, was a very much frightened 
 man, and under the creases of his floppy waistcoat his 
 heart was beating like a tom-tom. The penalty for 
 assault in the second degree was ten years in state's 
 prison, and life with Bashemath, even in the vicinity 
 of the Tunnygates, seemed sweet. The thought of 
 breaking stones under the summer sun — it was a pe- 
 culiarly hot summer — was awful. Ten years! He 
 could never live through it! And yet as his glance 
 fell upon the Tunnygates, arrayed in their best finery 
 and sitting with an air of importance upon the front 
 bench of the court room, he told himself that he would 
 do the whole thing all over again — ^yes, he would ! He 
 had only stood up for his rights, and Tunnygate's 
 blood was upon his own head — or wherever it was. 
 So he squeezed Bashemath's hand tenderly in response. 
 
 Upon the bench Judge Witherspoon, assigned from 
 
ISO TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 somewhere upstate to help keep down the ever-length- 
 ening criminal calendar of the Metropolitan District, 
 finished the letter he was writing to his wife in Genesee 
 Cotmty, sealed it and settled back in his chair. An 
 old war horse of the country bar, he had in his time 
 been mixed up in almost every kind of litigation, but 
 as he looked over the indictment he with difficulty re- 
 pressed a smile. Thirty years ago he'd had a dog 
 case himself ; also of the form, style and breed known 
 as bull. 
 
 "You may proceed, Mister District Attorney!" he 
 announced, and little Pepperill, the youngest of the 
 D. A.'s stafif, just out of the law school, begoggled 
 and with his hair plastered evenly down on either side 
 of his small round head, rose with serious mien, and 
 with a high piping voice opened the prosecution. 
 
 It was, he told them, a most unusual and hence most 
 important case. The defendant Appleboy had mali- 
 ciously procured a savage dog of the most vicious sort 
 and loosed it upon the innocent complainant as he was 
 on his way to work, with the result that the latter had 
 nearly been torn to shreds. It was a horrible, das- 
 tardly, incredible, fiendish crime, he would expect them 
 to do their full duty in the premises, and they should 
 hear Mr. Tunnygate's story from his own lips. 
 
 Mr. Tunnygate limped with difficulty to the stand, 
 and having been sworn gingerly sat down — partially* 
 Then turning his broadside to the gaping jury he re- 
 counted his woes with indignant gasps. 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 151 
 
 "Have you the trousers which you wore upon that 
 occasion?" inquired Pepperill. 
 
 Mr. Tunnygate bowed solemnly and lifted from the 
 floor a paper parcel which he untied and from which 
 he drew what remained of that now historic garment. 
 
 "These are they," he announced dramatically. 
 
 "I offer them in evidence," exclaimed Pepperill, 
 "and I ask the jury to examine them with great care." 
 
 They did so. 
 
 Tutt waited until the trousers had been passed from 
 hand to hand and returned to their owner; then, ro- 
 tund, chipper and birdlike as ever, began his cross-ex- 
 amination much like a woodpecker attacking a stout 
 stump. The witness had been an old friend of Mr. 
 Appleboy's, had he not? Tunnygate admitted it, and 
 Tutt pecked him again. Never had done him any 
 wrong, had he? Nothing in particular. Well, any 
 wrong? Tunnygate hesitated. Why, yes, Appleboy 
 had tried to fence in the public beach that belonged to 
 everybody. Well, did that do the witness any harm? 
 The witness declared that it did; compelled him to 
 go round when he had a right to go across. Oh ! Tutt 
 put his head on one side and glanced at the jury. How 
 many feet ? About twenty feet. Then Tutt pecked a 
 little harder. 
 
 "Didn't you tear a hole in the hedge and stamp 
 down the grass when by taking a few extra steps you 
 could have reached the beach without difficulty?" 
 
 "I — I simply tried to remove an illegal obstruc- 
 tion!" declared Tunnygate indignantly. 
 
152 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Didn't Mr. Appleboy ask you to keep off?" 
 
 "Sure-yes!" 
 
 "Didn't you obstinately refuse to do so?" 
 
 Mr. Pepperill objected to "obstinately" and it was 
 stricken out. 
 
 "I wasn't going to stay off where I had a right to 
 go," asserted the witness, 
 
 "And didn't you have warning that the dbg was 
 there?" 
 
 "Look here !" suddenly burst out Tunnygate. "You 
 can't hector me into anything. Appleboy never had a 
 dog before. He got a dog just to sic him on me! 
 He put up a sign 'Beware of the dog,' but he knew 
 that I'd think it was just a bluff. It was a plant, that's 
 'vhat it was! And just as soon as I got inside the 
 liedge that dog went for me and nearly tore me to bits. 
 k was a rotten thing to do and you know it !" 
 
 He subsided, panting. 
 
 Tutt bowed complacently. 
 
 "I move that the witness' remarks be stricken out on 
 jhe grounds first, that they are unresponsive; second, 
 that they are irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial; 
 third, that they contain expressions of opinion and 
 hearsay; and fourth, that they are abusive and gen- 
 erally improper." 
 
 "Strike them out!" directed Judge Witherspoon. 
 Then he turned to Tunnygate. "The essence of your 
 testimony is that the defendant set a dog on you, is it 
 not? You had quarreled with the defendant, with 
 whom you had formerly been on friendly terms. You 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 153 
 
 entered on premises claimed to be owned by him, 
 though a sign warned you to beware of a dog. The 
 dog attacked and bit you? That's the case, isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes, Your Honor." 
 
 "Had you ever seen that dog before?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "Do you know where he got it?" 
 
 "My wife told me " 
 
 "Never mind what your wife told you. Do you " 
 
 "He don't know where the dog came from, judge !" 
 suddenly called out Mrs. Tunnygate in strident tones 
 from where she was sitting. "But I know !" she added 
 venomously. "That woman of his got it from— — " 
 
 Judge Witherspoon fixed her coldly with an impas- 
 sive and judicial eye. 
 
 "Will you kindly be silent, madam? You will no 
 doubt be given an opportimity to testify as fully as 
 you wish. That is all, sir, unless Mr. Tutt has some 
 more questions." 
 
 Tutt waved the witness from the stand contemptu- 
 ously. 
 
 "Well, I'd like a chance to testify!" shrilled Mrs. 
 Tunnygate, rising in full panoply. 
 
 "This way, madam," said the clerk, motioning her 
 round the back of the jury box. And she swept pon- 
 derously into the offing like a full-rigged bark and 
 came to anchor in the witness chair, her chin rising 
 and falling upon her heaving bosom like the figurehead 
 of a vessel upon a heavy harbor swejl. 
 
 Now it has never been satisfactorily explained just 
 
IS4 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 why the character of an individual should be in any 
 way deducible from such irrelevant attributes as facial 
 anatomy, bodily structure or the shape of the cranium. 
 Perhaps it is not, and in reality we discern disposition 
 from something far more subtle — the tone of the voice, 
 the expression of the eyes, the lines of the face or 
 even from an aura unperceived by the senses. How- 
 ever that may be, the wisdom of the Constitutional 
 safeguard guaranteeing that every person charged with 
 crime shall be confronted by the witnesses against hira 
 was instantly made apparent when Mrs. Tunnygate 
 took the stand, for without hearing a word from her 
 firmly compressed lips the jury simultaneously swept 
 her with one comprehensive glance and turned away. 
 Students of women, experienced adventurers in matri- 
 mony, these plumbers, bird merchants, "delicates- 
 sens" and the rest looked, perceived and comprehended 
 that here was the very devil of a woman — a virago, a 
 shrew, a termagant, a natural-born trouble-maker ; and 
 they shivered and thanked God that she was Tunny- 
 gate's and not theirs; their unformulated sentiment 
 best expressed in Pope's immortal couplet : 
 
 Oh woman, woman! when to ill thy mind 
 Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend. 
 
 She had said no word. Between the judge and jury 
 nothing had passed, and yet through the alpha rays of 
 that mysterious medium of communication by which 
 all men as men are united where woman is concerned, 
 the thought was directly transmitted and unanimously 
 acknowledged that here for sure was a hell cat ! 
 
THE DOG ANDREW iSS 
 
 It was as naught to them that she testified to the 
 outrageous illegahty of the Appleboys' territorial am- 
 bitions, the irascibiUty of the wife, the violent threats 
 of the husband; or that Mrs. Appleboy had been ob- 
 served to mail a suspicious letter shortly before the 
 date of the canine assault. They disregarded her. 
 Yet when Tutt upon cross-examination sought to at- 
 tack her credibility by asking her various pertinent 
 questionsr-they unhesitatingly accepted his implied ac- 
 cusations as true, though under the rules of evidence 
 he was bound by her denials. 
 
 Peck I : "Did you not knock Mrs. Appleboy's 
 flower pots off the piazza ?" he demanded significantly. 
 
 "Never ! I never did !" she declared passionately. 
 
 But they knew in their hearts that she had. 
 
 Peck 2: "Didn't you steal her milk bottles?" 
 
 "What a lie ! It's absolutely false !" 
 
 Yet they knew that she did. 
 
 Peck 3 : "Didn't you tangle up their fish lines and 
 take their thole-pins ?" 
 
 "Well, I never! You ought to be ashamed to ask 
 a lady such questions!" 
 
 They found her guilty. 
 
 "I move to dismiss, Your Honor," chirped Tutt 
 blithely at the conclusion of her testimony. 
 
 Judge Witherspoon shook his head. 
 
 "I want to hear the other side," he remarked. "The 
 mere fact that the defendant put up a sign warning the 
 public against the dog may be taken as some evidence 
 that he had knowledge of the animal's vicious propen- 
 
iS6 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 sities. I shall let the case go to the jury unless this 
 evidence is contradicted or explained. Reserve your 
 motion." 
 
 , "Very well, Your Honor," agreed Tutt, patting him- 
 self upon the abdomen. "I will follow your suggestion 
 and call the defendant. Mr. Appleboy, take the stand." 
 
 Mr. Appleboy heavily rose and the heart of every 
 fat man upon the jury, and particularly that of the 
 Abyssinian brother upon the back row, went out to 
 him. For just as they had known without being told' 
 that the new Mrs. Tunnygate was a vixen, they realized 
 that Appleboy was a kind, good-natured man — a little 
 soft, perhaps, like his clams, but no more dangerous. 
 Moreover, it was plain that he had suffered and was, 
 indeed, still suffering, and they had pity for him. 
 Appleboy's voice shook and so did the rest of his per- 
 son as he recounted his ancient friendship for Tunny- 
 gate and their piscatorial association, their common 
 matrimonial experiences, the sudden change in -the 
 temperature of the society of Throggs Neck, the ma- 
 licious destruction of their property and the unex- 
 plained aggressions of Tunnygate upon the lawn. And 
 the jury, believing, understood. 
 
 Then like the sword of Damocles the bessemer voice 
 of Pepperill severed the general atmosphere of amia- 
 bility: "Where did you get that dog?" 
 
 Mr. Appleboy looked round helplessly, distress pic- 
 tured in every feature. 
 
 "My wife's aunt lent it to us." 
 
 "How did she come to lend it to you?" 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 157 
 
 "Bashemath wrote and asked for it." 
 
 "Oh ! Did you know anything about the dog before 
 you sent for it?" 
 
 "Of your own knowledge ?" interjected Tutt sharply. 
 
 "Oh, no !" returned Appleboy. 
 
 "Didn't you know it was a vicious beast?" sharply 
 challenged Pepperill. 
 
 "Of your own knowledge?" again warned Tutt. 
 
 "I'd never seen the dog." 
 
 "Didn't your wife tell you about it?" 
 
 Tutt sprang to his feet, wildly waving his arms: 
 
 "I object; on the ground that what passed between 
 husband and wife upon this subject must be regarded 
 as confidential." 
 
 "I will so rule," said Judge Witherspoon, smiling. 
 "Excluded." 
 
 Pepperill shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "I would like to ask a question," interpolated the 
 editor of Baby's World. 
 
 "Do!" exclaimed Tutt eagerly. 
 
 The editor, who was a fat editor, rose in an em- 
 barrassed manner. 
 
 "Mr. Appleboy !" he began. 
 
 "Yes, sir !" responded Appleboy. 
 
 "I want to get this straight. You and your wife had 
 a row with the Tunnygates. He tried to tear up your 
 front lawn. You warned him off. He kept on doing 
 it. You got a dog and put up a sign and when he dis- 
 regarded it you sicked the dog on him. Is that right?" 
 
 He was manifestly friendly, merely a bit cloudy in 
 
iS8 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 the cerebellum. The Abyssinian brother pulled him 
 sharply by the coat tails. 
 
 "Sit down," he whispered hoarsely. "You're gum- 
 ming it all up." 
 
 "I didn't sic Andrew on him!" protested Appleboy. 
 
 "But I say, why shouldn't he have ?" demanded the 
 baby's editor. "That's what anybody would do !" 
 
 Pepperill sprang frantically to his feet. 
 
 "Oh, I object! This juryman is showing bias. 
 This is entirely improper." 
 
 "I am, am I ?" sputtered the fat editor angrily. "I'll 
 show you " 
 
 "You want to be fair, don't you?" whined Pepperill. 
 "I've proved that the Appleboys had no right to hedge 
 in the beach !" 
 
 "Oh, pooh!" sneered the Abyssinian, now also get- 
 ting to his feet. "Supposing they hadn't ? Who cares 
 a damn? This man Tunnygate deserved all he's got!" 
 
 "Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" expostulated the judge 
 firmly. "Take your seats or I shall declare a mistrial. 
 Go on, Mr. Tutt. Call your next witness." 
 
 "Mrs. Appleboy," called out Tutt, "will you kindly 
 take the chair?" And that good lady, looking as if 
 all her adipose existence had been devoted to the pro- 
 duction of the sort of pies that mother used to make, 
 placidly made her way to the witness stand. 
 
 "Did you know that Andrew was a vicious dog?" 
 inquired Tutt. 
 
 "No !" answered Mrs. Appleboy firmly. "I didn't." 
 
 O woman ! 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 159 
 
 "That is all," declared Tutt with a triumphant smile. 
 
 "Then," snapped Pepperill, "why did you send for 
 him?" 
 
 "I was lonely," answered Bashemath unblushingly. 
 
 "Do you mean to tell this jury that you didn't know 
 that that dog was one of the worst biters in Livornia?" 
 
 "I do !" she replied. "I only knew Aunt Eliza had 
 a dog. I didn't know anything about the dog per- 
 sonally." 
 
 "What did you say to your aunt in your letter?" 
 
 "I said I was lonely and wanted protection." 
 
 "Didn't you hope the dog would bite Mr. Tunny- 
 gate?" 
 
 "Why, no !" she declared. "I didn't want him to bite 
 anybody." 
 
 At that the delicatessen man poked the plumber in 
 the ribs and they both grinned happily at one another. 
 
 Pepperill gave her a last disgusted look and sank 
 back in his seat. 
 
 "That is all !" he ejaculated feebly. 
 
 "One question, if you please, madam," said Judge 
 Witherspoon. "May I be permitted to" — he coughed 
 as a suppressed snicker ran round the court — "that is 
 
 — ^may I not— er Oh, look here! How did you 
 
 happen to have the idea of getting a dog?" 
 
 Mrs. Appleboy turned the full moon of her homely 
 countenance upon the court. 
 
 "The potato peel came down that way!" she ex- 
 plained blandly. 
 
 "What!" exploded the dealer in rubber novelties. 
 
i6o TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "The potato peel — it spelled 'dog,' " she repeated 
 artlessly. 
 
 "Lord !" deeply suspirated Pepperill. "What a case! 
 Carry me out!" 
 
 "Well, Mr. Tutt," said the judge, "now I will hear 
 what you may wish to say upon the question of whether 
 this issue should be submitted to the jury. However, 
 I shall rule that the indictment is sufficient." 
 
 Tutt elegantly rose. 
 
 "Having due respect to Your Honor's ruling as to 
 the sufficiency of the indictment I shall address myself 
 simply to the question of scienter. I might, of course, 
 dwell upon the impropriety of charging the defendant 
 with criminal responsibility for the act of another 
 free agent even if that agent be an animal — ^but I will 
 leave that, if necessary, for the Court of Appeals. If 
 anybody were to be indicted in this case I hold it should 
 have been the dog Andrew. Nay, I do not jest ! But 
 I can see by Your Honor's expression that any argu- 
 ment upon that score would be without avail." 
 
 "Entirely," remarked Witherspoon. "Kindly go 
 on!" 
 
 "Well," continued Tutt, "the law of this matter 
 needs no elucidation. It has been settled since the 
 time of Moses." 
 
 "Of whom?" inquired Witherspoon, "You don't 
 need to go back farther than Chief Justice Marshall 
 so far as I am concerned." 
 
 Tutt bowed. 
 
 "It is an established doctrine of the common law 
 
THE DOG ANDREW i6i 
 
 both of England and America that it is wholly proper 
 for one to keep a domestic animal for his use, pleasure 
 or protection, until, as Dykeman, J., says in MuUer vs. 
 McKesson, lo Hun., 45, 'some vicious propensity is 
 developed and brought out to the knowledge of the 
 owner.' Up to that time the man who keeps a dog or 
 other animal cannot be charged with liability for his 
 acts. This has always been the law. 
 
 "In the twenty-first chapter of Exodus at the twen- 
 ty-eighth verse it is written: 'If an ox gore a man 
 or a woman, that they die ; then the ox shall be surely 
 stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten ; but the owner 
 of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were wont to 
 push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testi- 
 fied to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that 
 he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be 
 stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.' 
 
 "In the old English case of Smith vs. Pehal, 2 
 Strange, 1264, it was said by the court: 'If a dog has 
 once bit a man, and the owner having notice thereof 
 keeps the dog, and lets him go about or lie at his door, 
 an action will lie against him at the suit of a person 
 who is bit, though it happened by such person's tread- 
 ing on the dog's toes ; for it was owing to his not hang- 
 ing the dog on the first notice. And the safety of the 
 king's subjects ought not afterwards to be endangered.' 
 That is sound law ; but it is equally good law that 'if 
 a person with full knowledge of the evil propensities 
 of an animal wantonly excites him or voluntarily and 
 unnecessarily puts himself in the way of such an ani- 
 
i62 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 mal he would be adjudged to have brought the injury 
 upon himself, and ought not to be entitled to recover. 
 In such a case it cannot be said in a legal sense that 
 the keeping of the animal, which is the gravamen of 
 the ofifense, produced the injury.' 
 
 "Now in the case at bar, first there is clearly no evi- 
 dence that this defendant knew or ever suspected that 
 the dog Andrew was otherwise than of a mild and 
 gentle disposition. That is, there is no evidence what- 
 ever of scienter. In fact, except in this single instance 
 there is no evidence that Andrew ever bit anybody. 
 Thus, in the word of Holy Writ the defendant Apple- 
 boy should be quit, and in the language of our own 
 courts he must be held harmless. Secondly, moreover, 
 it appears that the complainant deliberately put him- 
 self in the way of the dog Andrew, after full warning. 
 I move that the jury be directed to return a verdict 
 of not guilty." 
 
 "Motion granted," nodded Judge Witherspoon, 
 burying his nose in his handkerchief. "I hold that 
 every dog is entitled to one bite." 
 
 "Gentlemen of the jury," chanted the clerk: "How 
 say you? Do you find the defendant guilty or not 
 guilty?" 
 
 "Not guilty," returned the foreman eagerly, amid 
 audible evidences of satisfaction from the Abyssinian 
 brother, the Baby's World editor and the others. Mr. 
 Appleboy clung to Tutt's hand, overcome by emotion, 
 
 "Adjourn court!" ordered the judge. Then, he 
 
THE DOG ANDREW 163 
 
 beckoned to Mr. Appleboy. "Come up here!" he di- 
 rected. 
 
 Timidly Mr. Appleboy approached the dais. 
 
 "Don't do it again !" remarked His Honor shortly. 
 
 "Eh ? Beg pardon, Your Honor, I mean " 
 
 "I said : 'Don't do it again !' " repeated the judge 
 with a twinkle in his eye. Then lowering his voice 
 he whispered: "You see I come from Livornia, and 
 I've known Andrew for a long time." 
 
 As Tutt guided the Appleboys out into the corridor 
 the party came face to face with Mr. and Mrs. Tunny- 
 gate. 
 
 "Huh!" sneered Tunnygate. 
 
 "Huh!" retorted Appleboy. 
 
TOGGERY BILU 
 
 'Twas the saying of an ancient sage (Gorgias Leontinus, apud 
 Aristotle's Rhetoric, lib. iii. c.i8) that humour was the only test 
 of gravity, and gravity of humour. For a subject which would 
 not bear raillery was suspicious; and a jest which would not 
 bear a serious examination was certainly false wit. 
 — Shaftesbuky, Essay on the Freedom 
 
 of Wit and Humor, Sect. $. 
 
 Call a man a rascal, a wife beater, a murderer even, 
 and he may yet smile ; but deny his sense of humor and 
 he will brain you upon the spot. And this, methinks, 
 is strange, since to achieve greatness readily one should 
 be unburdened by a sense of humor. The great have 
 no time for trifling. They are men of single purpose, 
 of one idea; they are not to be diverted at a crucial mo- 
 ment by the whimsical discovery that their adversary 
 resembles a rabbit. There is much significance in the 
 double meaning of "divert" — namely: To turn aside 
 or to change one's aim or end ; and to amuse or enter- 
 tain. To have a sense of humor, to be amused — di- 
 verted — is to be turned away from following the star 
 of one's destiny. Can there be any doubt about this? 
 As Jeremy Taylor says in Holy Living and Dying, "H 
 our thoughts do at any time wander, and divert upon 
 other objects, bring them back again with prudent and 
 severe acts." Had little Iky Newton, when struck 
 upon his noodle by the famous apple, abandoned him- 
 
 164 
 
TOGGERY BILL 165 
 
 self to childish merriment would the Law of Gravita- 
 tion have been discovered? Never! No, greatness 
 and humor rarely bed together. 
 
 Why, then, do we cherish and pride ourselves upon 
 it? Because we realize tli(at just as no man can ex- 
 p^ect to be great who has a sense of humor, so no man 
 can be truly bad who has one. For a sense of humor 
 is what is known as a saving grace — diverting us from 
 the evil as well as from the good. 
 
 All of which, in a way, is neither here nor there, for 
 this story concerns the saving of a human soul — ^at 
 least temporarily — and the humor of the situation was 
 only a by-product, as it were. For Mr. Ephraim Tutt 
 had been summoned to a certain town in the Mohawk 
 Valley to defend one James Hawkins, otherwise known 
 as Skinny the Tramp, charged with the murder of The 
 Hermit of Turkey Hollow, and it was during the trial 
 and while waiting for the verdict that Mr. Tutt dis- 
 covered Willie Toothaker and saved him from the 
 vengeance of Toggery Bill, the local magnate and 
 merchant prince who dwelt at the Phoenix House and 
 posed as the leading citizen of Pottsville. 
 
 "How are y', stranger?" he condescended through 
 his tilted cigar to Mr. Tutt as the latter climbed out 
 of the decrepit jitney that had borne him from the 
 "deppo." "Y' won't find this dump so bad. I've 
 managed to wiggle along in it for nearly eleven years." 
 He removed the cigar. "Here, Willie — fetch in the 
 gent's bag!" There being no immediate response, 
 Pottsville's leading citizen raised his voice to a bellow. 
 
1 66 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Here you! Willie! Willie Toothaker! Gol dura 
 the boy, where is he 1" 
 
 "Pray do not trouble yourself, sir/' said Mr. Tutt, 
 ascending to the veranda occupied by the leading citi- 
 zen. 
 
 "No trouble, I assure you," protested the latter. 
 "Permit me to introduce myself. My name's Gookin 
 — William Gookin — proprietor of the principal gents' 
 furnishing, haberdashery and novelty store of Potts- 
 ville. He bowed grudgingly as if fearful that he 
 might do the new guest too much honor. 
 
 "Tutt is my name," responded the lawyer dryly, 
 "Ephraim Tutt." 
 
 "I guessed as much," said Mr. Gookin. "We folks 
 up here read the papers and we've heard of you. Come 
 to defend Skinny the Tramp, have y' ? Well, he needs 
 the best he can get." 
 
 Mr. Gookin pushed open the screen door for Mr. 
 Tutt to enter. "Dinner's ready — don't pay to hold the 
 vittles waitin' too long! Here you, Betty — where's 
 your ma ?" 
 
 Mr. Tutt found himself confronted by a tiny girl in 
 a blue-calico dress matching her eyes, with two enor- 
 mous flaxen braids which, separated by her thin little 
 neck, hung forward over her tiny bosom and swung 
 heavily about her waist. She was earnest and won- 
 dering. 
 
 "Ma's out !" she apologized, panting. "Lemrae take 
 your bag, sir. Ypu're to have Number Five." 
 
TOGGERY BILL 167 
 
 "That the room with the broken pane?" inquired 
 Gookin authoritatively. 
 
 "Yes, sir, only Willie fixed it with a piece of paper." 
 
 "Hm!" ejaculated Gookin. "Where is Willie? 
 Why ain't he here attendin' to his business ?" 
 
 "He's out with the wasps," explained Betty timidly. 
 "He's made 'em an electric chair." 
 
 Mr. Tutt peered curiously at his small companion. 
 A lawyer retained in a murder case does not enjoy 
 having electric chairs referred to thus casually. 
 
 "Electric chair for the wasp ?" demanded Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "Yes, sir!" burst forth the child. "He's perf'c'ly 
 wonderful ! Ma told him to smoke 'em out, but he had 
 a much better idea. You see they go in and out by a 
 hole, and Willie borrowed a storage battery from the 
 garage and rigged up some wires in front of the hole — 
 positively and negatively, he says — and fastened 'em 
 to the battery so when one of the wasps goes in he 
 makes a contract and electrocutes himself." 
 
 "Goshj That boy do beat all!" quoth Gookin, mo- 
 mentarily forgetting grammar in scientific interest. 
 
 "I should like to know Willie," affirmed Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "Oh, you'll know him !" she cried eagerly. "Every- 
 body knows Willie. You'll just love him !" 
 
 "I'm sure I shall, my dear," returned the old lawyer, 
 laying his hand on the yellow head. "And now will 
 you show me to my room? No, I'll carry the bag!" 
 
 "Love him — ^hell!" snorted Mr. Gookin as he 
 watched the odd pair climbing up the stairs. 
 
 "Here's your room, sir." 
 
1 68 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 His guide indicated a shabby cubicle containing a 
 rheumatic bed, an intoxicated bureau and a degenerate 
 washstand. The yellow panes were opaque with grime, 
 and the only neat thing visible was a tight patch of 
 clean white paper which took the place of one of them. 
 The room was musty with the smell of pine boards 
 and ancient bedding. But Mr. Tutt gave no thought to 
 it, being entirely occupied with his new friend. 
 
 "What's your name, my dear?" he asked as he 
 placed his shabby suitcase upon the bed. 
 
 "Betty Barrows Best," she answered, smiling con- 
 fidently up at him. 
 
 "It couldn't be better, could it !" he chuckled. "And 
 what do you do here?" 
 
 He sat down in the single wabbly chair, pulled the 
 child over to his knee, and taking a venerable leather 
 case of enormous proportions from his coat-tail pocket 
 removed a stogy and lighted it with one of the sul- 
 phur matches from the bureau while she watched with 
 delighted interest. 
 
 "Me? Oh, I work round. Ma, she runs the hotel. 
 Mr. Gookin — he wants to marry her, but she don't like 
 him. Nobody does." 
 
 "Why not?" inquired Mr. Tutt tensely.; 
 
 " 'Cause he's a skinflint!" 
 
 "Dear me!" 
 
 "Yes! Honest he is! He's rich as mud, but he's 
 that mean — ^Willie says — ^he'd pay his help to go with- 
 out their dinner and then go upstairs after they were 
 asleep and steal the money !" 
 
TOGGERY BILL 169 
 
 "How terrible !" gasped Mr. Tutt. "He must be the 
 meanest man in the whole world." 
 
 "He is !" she declared earnestly. 
 
 "Tell me about Willie. Who is he?" 
 
 Betty's face broke into a smile of ecstatic apprecia- 
 tion. 
 
 "Oh, Willie's just the wonderfulest boy ! He can do 
 anything. Last week" — her voice sank in awe — "he 
 stayed under water forty minutes !" 
 
 "Gracious!" exclaimed Mr. Tutt. "How on earth 
 did he manage that ?" 
 
 "With the pipe of the automatic pump he borrowed 
 off Mr. Dorsey's car. You see he hitched one end of 
 it to a piece of board so's it would float out of water, 
 and then he tied the other end in his mouth. He had 
 a bet on of twenty-five cents with Charley Carter — 
 only Charley didn't know how he was goin' to do it. 
 So he got a big stone and went out where it was deep 
 and jumped overboard with it. An' he didn't come 
 up for the longest while — forty whole minutes ! You 
 see the stone held him down and he breathed through 
 the pipe." Her eyes shone. 
 
 "Willie must be a remarkable boy !" 
 
 "I guess he is ! Do you know, now he catches eels 
 that way. He and Charley have a company. They 
 go out after dark and Charley rows the boat and Willie 
 he goes down on the bottom with a bug light and When 
 the eels come he spears them with a fork he made at 
 the blacksmith's. Once he caught a pike that weighed 
 six pounds, but it fought so he lost holt of the stone 
 
170 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 and he and the pike and all came up pop together." 
 
 Mr. Tutt laughed heartily. 
 
 "What does Willie do for a living?" he asked. 
 
 "He works for ma," explained the child. "You see 
 he never had any mother, and when his dad died last 
 winter — ^he used to work in the garage — Willie had to 
 live somewhere, so he works for his keep. He sleeps 
 under the stairs. He's got the wonderfulest collection 
 of stamps !" 
 
 "Stamps?" 
 
 "Yes, postage stamps. Two big books full of 'em. 
 He's always tradin' round. Some folks says he's got 
 the best collection in the county. And nobody knows 
 where he keeps it neither ! 'Cept me !" 
 
 "Where? Tell me— won't you?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "Give you a quarter !" 
 
 "No, sir-ree! I wouldn't tell you for a hundred 
 quarters !" 
 
 "Well, you can have the quarter because you didn't 
 tell me!" said Mr. Tutt. 
 
 Betty grinned. 
 
 "I know heaps of things I wouldn't tell you for a 
 quarter!" she announced provocatively. 
 
 "Oh, I'm a poor man !" hurriedly asserted Mr. Tutt. 
 "Now, Mr. Gookin " 
 
 "Bet-tee !" came a female voice from the foot of the 
 stairs. "Tell the gentleman it's time for dinner!" 
 
 "All right, ma!" called Betty. "He's comin'! I 
 was just tellin' him about Willie." 
 
TOGGERY BILL 171 
 
 "Then he'll be there all right !" answered her mother. 
 "Tell him to come down before his soup gets cold." 
 
 Mr. Tutt tossed the butt of his stogy into the slop 
 basin and took Betty's microscopic hand in his. 
 
 "Come on ! Let's go down together !" said he. "I'm 
 afraid of your Mr. Gookin !" 
 
 As hand in hand they descended to the office they 
 passed a strange-looking object lying upon a shelf near 
 a row of kerosene lamps. To the superficial gaze it 
 would have appeared to consist of about eighteen 
 inches of rubber tubing, a brass nozzle and the remains 
 of a defunct atomizer. 
 
 "And what is that?" asked Mr. Tutt, eying it with 
 suspicion. 
 
 "That's Willie's machine for blowing out the lamps," 
 she informed him with pride. 
 
 "But why does he use that?" pondered the old law- 
 yer. "Why doesn't he simply blow 'em out with his 
 mouth?" 
 
 Betty looked genuinely surprised. 
 
 "Why, it's ever so much more fun to blow 'em out 
 with that !" she declared. 
 
 Downstairs Toggery Bill Gookin was fretfully 
 awaiting Mr. Tutt's arrival. As Pottsville's leading 
 citizen and as the actual owner of the Phoenix House 
 — the mortgage upon it which he held was several 
 years overdue — he regarded it as fitting that he should 
 entertain whatever guest of distinction passed that 
 way. Moreover, to be seen in such a celebrated law- 
 yer's company would lend him a momentary reflected 
 
172 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 glory and enable him to discuss the murder trial as an 
 insider, as it were. The defendant's was the popular 
 side, and Mr. Tutt would therefore be a popular char- 
 acter. Maybe he could" get him in the habit of drop- 
 ping into the store evenings, and that would bring 
 business. Next to the circus nothing brought folks to 
 Pottsville like a murder trial — and the Turkey Hollow 
 case was a good one, a real old-fashioned thriller. So 
 Gookin looked for a big time. 
 
 "This way, Mr. Tutt!" said he blandly, waving him 
 toward the fly-blown screen door over which was 
 painted Dining Room. "You an' I are the only ones !" 
 
 Mr. Tutt released Betty's hand and followed. Not 
 that he wished to eat with the meanest man in the 
 world, but because he made it a practise to be on good 
 terms with everybody, and, anyhow, there didn't seem 
 to be anything else to do. 
 
 "Does this suit you all right?" inquired Mr. Gookiil 
 ingratiatingly, and smoothing his stomach. 
 
 It was then for the first time that Mr. Tutt fully ab- 
 sorbed the glory of Toggery Bill. Now we know that 
 there is one glory of the sun and another glory of the 
 moon and another glory of the stars, and that one star 
 differeth from another star in glory, but Toggery Bill 
 shone with the glory of all the stars of the Mohawk 
 Valley condensed into one. He believed in advertising 
 one's own wares and in keeping oneself before the 
 public. That was one reason for his living at the 
 Phoenix House. It was also his reason for belonging 
 to all the societies, clubs, organizations and orders 
 
TOGGERY BILL 173 
 
 to which he could get himself elected. Thus, as he in- 
 dicated to Mr. Tutt the chair he was to occupy before 
 the fly-screened pumpkin pie, there dangled from the 
 heavy double chain that stretched across his plaid 
 waistcoat between its upper story of pockets the gold- 
 and-ivory insignia that proclaimed him a Past Exalted 
 Ruler of the Purple Mountain of the Brotherhood of 
 Abyssinian Mysteries and of that degree known as the 
 Sacred Camel of King Menelek. In the braided lapel 
 of his dinky belted steel-blue Oxford jacket shone the 
 resplendent jewel of the United Patrons of Democracy, 
 and beside it buttons which proclaimed him not only 
 a tribesman of the Mohawk Lodge of the Aborigines 
 of America but a part owner of the fourth issue of 
 Liberty Bonds. 
 
 The fact that he was pudgily built with a jellylike 
 protuberance in front did not prevent his wearing a 
 readymade suit out of stock, of the very latest Hecht, 
 Meisner & Lamb cut. He wore a dotted brown shirt, 
 detachable cuffs, a Silver Dart turnover collar, a sal- 
 mon-pink tie encircled by a gold cameo ring bearing a 
 medallion of Jupiter, and his bulging shoes were of 
 patent leather with tops of gray kid exhibiting an 
 inch or two of white cotton sock above. From his 
 breast pocket hung in careless profusion a huge purple- 
 silk handkerchief, while the final touch of elegance 
 was imparted to his person by a group of three enor- 
 mous fountain pens which protruded from his waist- 
 coat pocket and which were adorned with filigrees of 
 graven silver. Thus one might truly say of hira that. 
 
174 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 like Addison, his style was "familiar, but not coarse; 
 elegant, but not ostentatious." 
 
 "And what do you think of our little town, eh?" he 
 remarked breezily as he tucked in his napkin just below 
 the medallion of Jupiter. "You'll manage, I guess. If 
 you don't find what you want, ask me and I'll see that 
 you get it." 
 
 "I should say from what I have observed of it that 
 you had a very progressive community here," replied 
 Mr. Tutt courteously, gazing in wonder at the insignia 
 of the Sacred Camel, the purple handkerchief and the 
 row of fountain pens. "Right up to the minute, as 
 they say !" 
 
 Toggery Bill looked pleased. 
 — INo, no; not so bad!" he returned, his fat cheeks 
 creased in satisfaction. "We have two moving-picture 
 houses — one with vordville on Saturdays; and all the 
 latest Broadway attractions pass through here." 
 
 While this left Mr. Tutt in doubt whether said at- 
 tractions, in fact, stopped in Pottsville, he did not risk 
 the query. Toggery Bill was too good either to be 
 really true or to be interrupted. Moreover, at that 
 moment the swinging door at the end of the room shot 
 open violently and the remains of what had indubitably 
 once been a baby carriage appeared in the aperture and 
 rolled swiftly toward them, guided by a freckle- face 
 small boy with bright red hair and an inquiring up- 
 turned nose. The top of the baby carriage had been 
 partially removed and a shelf of quarter-inch boards 
 substituted therefor, upon which two plates of soup 
 
TOGGERY BILL 175 
 
 reclined at a dangerous and fear-inspiring angle. From 
 beneath the urchin's armpits hung a huge apron that 
 swept the floor. 
 
 Willie — for it was he — skilfully guided the baby 
 carriage alongside the old lawyer and brought it to a 
 stop by means of a mechanical contrivance operated 
 from the rear with strings. Then surveying the work 
 of his hands with obvious appreciation he turned 
 brightly to Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "Soup ?" he chirruped. 
 
 There are those fatalists who deny that anything is 
 undetermined, and aver that what must be not only 
 must be but has been predestined from the dawn of 
 eternity. We apperceive the logical possibility of this, 
 but regard it as an intellectual delusion. We are re- 
 luctant to believe that we cannot fill an inside straight 
 or perfect a bobtail flush without assistance from an 
 uninvited deity — rendered several millions of years 
 ago. To us — like Nietzsche — ^the joy of living lies in 
 living dangerously. To us the open coal hole is a con- 
 tinual invitation to adventure. Luck ? Who does not 
 believe in it ? The youth unwilling to take a chance is 
 already an old man. If there were no chances to take, 
 then indeed would we be all old men. No, no — several 
 thousand times ! The leaf swept by the current along 
 a brook is caught against a projecting rock, hangs 
 there undecidedly for a moment, and then owing to 
 some accidental impetus is dislodged to flow either to 
 the right or to the left as the case may be, to be drawn 
 gently rocking into a backwater of safety or be sucked 
 
176 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 into a maelstrom of foam and fall that may send it 
 whirling for a hundred miles. So what we call chance 
 plays an enormous part in human affairs and often 
 leads to a man's ultimate classification as rational of 
 insane, as criminal or honest, as belonging rathe* 
 among the goats than among the sheep. 
 
 So it was a postage stamp — which after all is not 
 very different from a leaf — that fluttering into th« 
 existence > of Willie Toothaker diverted him — assisted 
 by his sense of humor — to a new and perhaps better 
 destiny — and united him with the firm of Tutt & Tutt. 
 For, as has already been hinted, Willie was a philatelist 
 of no mean order and as a trader in foreign stamps 
 displayed an acumen and ability worthy of John Wana- 
 maker, A. T. Stewart or the more recent if no less 
 celebrated Mr. Roth. 
 
 ' The stamp in question was one of an unused set of 
 the famous Dom Pedro triangulars of 1871, of which 
 the pale India-blue twenty- four pesos is a rarity, and 
 of which Willie needed a specimen to complete his set 
 of the same ; and it, along with its little unused broth- 
 ers, was affixed to a strip of cardboard in a small hang- 
 ing showcase upon the door jamb of Mr. Moses Mea- 
 chem, the dealer in notions, whose store on Main 
 Street faced that of Toggery Bill. 
 
 For weeks Willie in the intervals of eel catching and 
 wasp electrocution had yearned for the possessioft of 
 that stamp. Only those who as philatelists, old or 
 young, have over a long period industriously compiled 
 a set of rarities and lack but one, and then suddenly 
 
TOGGERY BILL 177 
 
 see it fluttering temptingly almost within their grasp, 
 can appreciate the passionate longing with which Willie 
 Toothaker coveted that Dom Pedro triangulares. The 
 father of seven female infants whose ambition can be 
 only satisfied by a son, the faded damsel who still as- 
 pires to be wooed and won, the hunter who waits 
 tensely for the giant moose whose hoofprints he has 
 seen hard by, the bride standing impatient at the church 
 door, the lust of an Antony for a Cleopatra — ^the emo- 
 tions of all these pale before the burning itch experi- 
 enced by Willie Toothaker to possess the India-blue 
 twenty- four pesos exhibiting the whiskered counte- 
 nance of Dom Pedro of Brazil. For only a small brass 
 hook stood between him and the object of his desire; 
 the showcase had no lock. 
 
 It was like owning a diadem without its crowning 
 jewel. And while the other inhabitants of the town 
 crowded into the old courthouse to hear Prosecutor 
 Mason make his opening harangue to the jury charg- 
 ing Skinny the Tramp with the murder of The Her- 
 mit of Turkey Hollow, Willie stood in front of Meach- 
 em's notion store, his eyes fastened upon the engraved 
 presentment of the Brazilian emperor. Yet it was the 
 desire of the moth for the star; the price of the stamp 
 was $3.79! 
 
 At that moment Willie's exchequer contained but 
 twenty-five cents, given him by Mr. Tutt upon the eve- 
 ning of his arrival, it being his present intention never 
 to part therewith, but to preserve it unimpaired along 
 with other priceless treasures — the paste scarfpin in- 
 
178 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 herited from his father, a bear's dried ear, a seed pearl 
 discovered in a discarded oyster in the Phoenix House 
 dining-room, an abandoned revolver that would not 
 revolve, one of Betty's early teeth, a rain check for the 
 Mohawk Palace Theater, a small bottle of water said 
 to have come from the River Jordan, and a celluloid 
 button bearing the motto "Kiss me — I'm sterilized!" 
 For he had conceived a blind and unreasoning adora- 
 tion for Mr, Tutt from the moment that he had wheeled 
 in the dinner on that first day. Here, he told himself, 
 was a man of the world — a. hero! 
 
 Perhaps it was the mere contrast between the old 
 lawyer's dignified appearance in his tall hat and frock 
 coat and that of Toggery Bill Gookin; perhaps it was 
 the whimsical kindly look in Mr. Tutt's faded eyes; 
 perhaps Betty's encomium upon his good nature and 
 gentleness of speech — whatever it was, Willie had been 
 his slave from the instant he had uttered the word 
 "soup." 
 
 Moreover, Mr. Tutt had come to Pottsville to pro- 
 tect Willie's friend Skinny the Tramp from Constable 
 Higgins, Squire Mason and the other bloodhounds of 
 the law, and thus it was apparent that his heart was 
 in the right place. To Willie — ^who was a Bolshevik— 
 the law and all it represented were anathema. From 
 his infancy he had always seemed to be falling afoul 
 of it quite unintentionally. Thrice he had been ar- 
 rested and placed in durance vile in the village lockup, 
 on one of which occasions he had made his exit with- 
 out difficulty by squeezing through the bars of the 
 
TOGGERY BILL 179 
 
 window. This had reflected heavily upon Constable 
 Higgins, who thereafter had become his sworn enemy; 
 and the next time he and Betty had slid down a neigh- 
 bor's haycock, slightly disarranging its apex, that of- 
 ficer of the law had promptly arrested him for "ma- 
 licious mischief." Willie had been discharged with a 
 lecture on the sacredness of private property, but now 
 the constable was always gunning for him. 
 
 So was Toggery Bill, who somehow sensed the de- 
 rision in which he was held by both the children — for 
 children, like dogs,, have an instinct by which they at 
 once detect those who are selfish and cruel, just as 
 they know those who are kind and good. Besides, 
 Toggery Bill wished to marry Mrs. Best and they stood 
 in his way — or he thought that they did. So whatever 
 went wrong in Pottsville was charged by those in 
 authority to the debit side of Willie Toothaker's record. 
 
 There was nobody in sight. Opposite the court- 
 house a straggling line of flivvers, carryalls, democrat 
 wagons and buggies waited while their owners drank 
 in, open-mouthed, the eloquence of Squire Mason 
 within the courthouse. There was a high wind blow- 
 ing and a blanket had fallen sideways off one of the 
 horses. Willie walked down and pulled it on again. 
 The horse looked round and rubbed its cheek on the 
 shaft, and he gave it a friendly pat, for he liked 
 animals. 
 
 Inside the courthouse he could hear the prosecut- 
 or's voice as it sank to a tremolo of pathos and then 
 rose to a hurricane of denunciation. No courts for 
 
i8o TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 him! So he strolled back to Meachem's. Behind his 
 show window Toggery Bill checking up a bill of goods 
 watched him with greedy suspicion. There was some- 
 thing wrong with a boy who went sneaking round 
 while everybody was at a murder trial ! 
 
 The vagrant September breeze caught up the dust 
 and leaves from the ruts and drove them in dancing 
 spirals along the street; it tore the smoke from the 
 chimneys and set the signs a-banging, and having noth- 
 ing better to do it mischievously rattled the little show 
 case outside the notion store until it loosed the hook 
 and let the glass door swing open. For an instant of 
 two the stamps dangling from their slips of adhesive 
 paper fluttered helplessly, and then — the Dom Pedro 
 triangulares pale India-blue twenty-four pesos gentlv 
 detached itself and whirled down the street. 
 
 Just as there is a breaking point in any physical ten- 
 sion, so there is in all of us a point of moral overstrain, 
 beyond which we collapse. The bridge will not bear 
 more than a certain load. The small boy cannot with- 
 stand more than a certain amount of temptation. It 
 is a straw which we are told at last breaks the camel's 
 back. For Willie the straw was the Dom Pedro tri- 
 angulares. He did not intend to steal it, he merely in- 
 tended to rescue it, but as it lay in his hand — a per-: 
 feet unused specimen, with every hair of Dom Pedro's 
 beard clear and distinct, beautiful, fascinating, alluring 
 in its pale India-blue mystery, even the mucilage upon 
 its triangular back smooth and unsullied by the human 
 tongue — an uncontrollable desire seized him to see how 
 
TOGGERY BILL i8i 
 
 it would look along with the others in his book. Just 
 to see how it would look! Nothing else! Then he 
 would run back and stick it in the showcase again ! 
 
 Placing it inside his hatband, Willie dashed palpitat- 
 ing to the Phoenix House, unearthed from its secret 
 hiding-place his cherished album, and lafd it open upon 
 the kitchen table. With trembling fingers he removed 
 the stamp from his hat and laid it — ^merely laid it — in 
 its designated place. At last the set was complete! 
 Ecstasy! There they all were, the one peso of dusky 
 red, the two pesos of green, the three of purple, the 
 five of gray-brown, the seven of pink, the twelve of 
 black, the fifteen of scarlet — and the twenty-four pesos 
 of pale India blue. A perfect row of eight Dom 
 Pedros, all twins, all exactly alike, all looking the same 
 way, a complete harmonious family, now reunited with 
 their elder brother. 
 
 Now who will contend that this was all foreor- 
 dained ? Was it not chance that blew open Meachem's 
 showcase ? Was it not chance that dislocated the pre- 
 cise stamp of all those therein with which Willie's fate 
 was intertwined? At any rate it was chance that led 
 the wind once again to put an English on the spinning 
 ball of Willie's destiny and flick the twenty-four pesos 
 out of the stamp book and into the kettle of black- 
 berry jam that was boiling upon the range. Face down 
 it fell, Dom Pedro's whiskers among the bobbing black- 
 berries; squirmed for a moment in its death agony, 
 and sank slowly beneath the purple flood. It was al- 
 most like suicide ; a suicide out of malice ! Who was 
 
i82 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Dom Pedro, to have done such a thing to him ? Willie 
 stood horror-stricken, holding his breath. Why had 
 he chased after the darned old stamp ? He had only 
 gone after it out of good will. He didn't have to! 
 And now ! 
 
 Stealthily and reeking with a cold perspiration he 
 replaced his book in its secret hiding place. Anyhow, 
 nobody had seen him with the twenty- four pesos! 
 
 But that night as he lay on his pallet under the 
 stairs he was visited by fearful nightmares in whidi 
 he was always running — always running — with feet 
 of lead, carrying a kettle of blackberry jam, while just 
 behind him, his gleaming eyes and glistening teeth not 
 six feet away, followed a terrible person with iierce 
 black bushy whiskers and turndown collar and plaid 
 necktie, breathing purple pesos — Dom Pedro, Emperor 
 of Brazil, 
 
 The reasons Toggery Bill had not gone to the court- 
 house had been twofold. First, he had been obliged to 
 go over his accounts ; and second, he had suddenly been 
 seized with a great idea — an idea of genius. He, like 
 Willie, had been visited by a dream — in which dense 
 throngs of people besieged his doors clamoring to buy 
 his goods. He awoke, perceiving his opportunity. 
 The people were there — right in Pottsville — only they 
 were down at the courthouse. The thing was to lure 
 them up to his store. How? That was the question. 
 It was a perfectly good idea — a sound business idea— 
 and it had nothing at all to do with the Dom Pedro 
 
TOGGERY BILL 185 
 
 triangulares or a sense of humor. Yet somehow they 
 all got pitch-forked in together. 
 
 When Moses Meachem came back from the court- 
 house at five o'clock Toggery Bill was sitting on the 
 wooden steps waiting for him. Though they con- 
 ducted somewhat similar establishments they were not 
 really rivals, for Meachem catered more to the femi- 
 nine and juvenile trade. 
 
 "See what happened to your showcase?" inquired 
 Gookin significantly. 
 
 Moses looked quickly up at it. 
 
 "Gol durn it!" he ejaculated. "Ain't that the luck !" 
 
 "Stamp missin', ain't there?" inquired Toggery Bill 
 shortly. 
 
 "Yep." 
 
 "Iknow who's got it!" 
 
 "The Dickens yer do !" 
 
 "Yep," complacently. 
 
 "Tell us." 
 
 "Willie Toothaker." 
 
 "The young devil!" 
 
 "Yep! He's got it!" affirmed Toggery Bill, thus 
 deliberately creating the impression that Willie had 
 unhooked the case and personally removed the stamp. 
 
 "By golly, you just wait till I get him !" 
 
 Moses Meachem clenched both his fists. He was a 
 hard man, whom any dog would have avoided if it did 
 not bite him. 
 
 "Better get after him quick, then !" 
 
 Without another word Mr. Meachem turned toward 
 
i84 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 the Phoenix House. Willie had just returned to the 
 kitchen sink after wheeling into the crowded dining- 
 room a baby-carriage load of New England boiled 
 dinner when Meachem invited him sternly to step out 
 into the woodshed for a minute. 
 
 "I want that stamp!" he growled in low, fierce 
 tones, and Willie abandoned himself to despair. 
 
 "I ain't got it, Mr. Meachem !" he wailed. "I ran 
 after it to save it for you; an' then I just thought I'd 
 see how it looked in the book, an' then all of a sudden 
 the wind blew it into the jam kettle." 
 
 Mr. Meachem suddenly grabbed Willie by the neck. 
 
 "You young devil, you !" he hissed. "You miserable 
 little scoundrel. You either give me back that stamp 
 or you go to jail. I'm goin' right over to tell the con- 
 stable." 
 
 Willie turned white. 
 
 "Oh, please don't, Mr. Meachem !" he begged. "I'll 
 pay you for it — ^honest, I will !" 
 
 Meachem looked hard at him. 
 
 "Pay me ! You ain't got five dollars !" 
 
 "I know — where I can get it — maybe." 
 
 Mr. Meachem stroked his chin. 
 
 "It's my duty to go right over and make a complaint. 
 On t'other hand I hev the right and also the duty to 
 try and get back my property. I dunno " 
 
 "Mr. Meachem !" besought Willie. "I'll give you 
 fifteen dollars an' buy the whole set, if only you won't 
 make a complaint! Honest. Cross — my — ^heart — I 
 will! I — I — ^know — a man " He searched his 
 
TOGGERY BILL 185 
 
 mind vainly for an imaginary source of financial as- 
 sistance. 
 
 Meachem relinquished his hold, but he stuck his 
 lean visage close up against Willie's. 
 
 "I'll give you till — let's see, this is Wednesday — till 
 Friday morning, an' if I don't get that fifteen dollars 
 by ten o'clock I'll ask for a warrant for ye !" he threat- 
 ened. 
 
 "Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Meachem!" choked 
 Willie. 
 
 Then his heart sank. He could no more produce 
 fifteen dollars by Friday morning at ten o'clock than 
 he could produce a gold-plated armadillo! 
 
 "Willie! Willie! Where are you?" called Mrs. 
 Best feverishly from the kitchen. "Why don't you 
 fetch in the soup dishes?" 
 
 "Comin', Mrs. Best!" he answered. 
 
 Then whistling he kicked open the dining-room 
 door, dragging the baby carriage behind him by a single 
 finger. 
 
 Willie passed an almost sleepless night, fitfully in- 
 terrupted by dreams in which , Meachem and Dom 
 Pedro quarreled for possession of his incarcerated 
 body. So too did Mr. Tutt, for the prosecution had 
 built up a damaging case of circumstantial evidence 
 against Skinny the Tramp, proving many and diverse 
 threats made by him against the deceased, and what 
 appeared to be an exclusive opportunity on his part to 
 commit the murder. Skinny could only deny it-^that 
 was all. And upstate juries are prone to convict. Like- 
 
i86 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 wise, Mr. Toggery Bill Gookin slept but little, for the 
 morrow was to see the disclosure of his great idea and 
 it had been two a.m. before he had finished what he 
 was doing in his store window. 
 
 But at last upon all three the morning dawned. Mr. 
 Tutt walking to the courthouse found his way im- 
 peded by a large gathering of citizenry and neighbor- 
 ing farmers in front of Pottsville's principal dry-goods 
 establishment, the window of which had overnight 
 been draped with an American flag, partially clutched 
 in the waxen hand of a lay figure adorned with one of 
 Toggery Bill's ready-made suits. In the center — and 
 well down stage — stood a kitchen chair, on the seat 
 of which in an upright position reposed a small barrel 
 — a nail keg, presumably — ^apparently filled with 
 money, for it bulged forth ostentatiously — silver and 
 copper coins, upon a substratum of what appeared to 
 be genuine bank notes. Pasted in the window was a 
 hand-painted sign, reading as follows: 
 
 "Who can tell how much money is in this barrel? 
 
 "Whoever comes nearest will get it all! 
 
 "The next nearest will receive free one of our best 
 eighteen-dollar 'Nobby Spring Suits!' 
 
 "The next nearest will receive free one of our best 
 pair of 'Nobby Spring Pants!' 
 
 "The next nearest will receive free one of our best 
 'Nobby Waistcoats!' 
 
 "The next five nearest will receive free one pair of 
 our best 'Nobby Suspenders!' 
 
TOGGERY BILL 187 
 
 "Absolutely free to all! ! ! 
 
 "William^ Gookin, Proprietor." 
 
 Skinny the Tramp and the murder trial were tem- 
 porarily forgotten. The sign was evidently creating 
 a huge sensation. Toggery Bill had never been known 
 to give anything away before ; and he was doing a brisk 
 trade while the onlookers figured astutely upon the 
 amount of cash the barrel probably contained. 
 
 As the day wore on Willie became desperate. If 
 Meachem carried out his threat and turned him over 
 to the constable the judge would surely send him to 
 the reformatory, and he would never see Betty and her 
 mother again ! No more eels, no more wasps, no more 
 stamps ! 
 
 Curse the stamps, anyway; they were to blame for 
 his present parlous state! They told awful stories 
 about the reformatory, worse than the poor farm. It 
 would be much better to be a high-class, respectable 
 murderer in a regular state's prison. Perhaps the 
 part of prudence would be to run away. If the gipsies 
 had only been there he would have had his fortune 
 told. "Let the cards decide!" That had been a line 
 that struck his fancy in the last melodrama at the 
 Mohawk Palace. But the gipsies were in the sunny 
 southland — at least, that was where they had said they 
 were going. 
 
 "Let the cards decide!" But suppose there weren't 
 any cards? There must surely be some way of de- 
 ciding what to do! There was always chance. He 
 
i88 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 would leave it to chance. At the bottom of his pallet 
 under the stairs — in the box where he preserved the 
 relics of the bear, the seed pearl, the water from the 
 River Jordan and the celebrated talisman — lay also a 
 tangible evidence of Willie's primitive intelligence. 
 For though he was clever he was also superstitious to 
 a degree. These superstitions were partially instinctive, 
 partially acquired from the gipsies and Skinny the 
 Tramp, and partially of his own invention. Among 
 these last was his belief in the infallibility of what he 
 called his leader. This was a complicated affair con- 
 structed out of a broken bamboo arrow found in the 
 rubbish heap back of Meachem's, a piece of fishline and 
 a horse chestnut. When in doubt what to do or where 
 to go, one had simply to whirl the machine round one's 
 head, utter the formula "Poliko-boliko-milliky-me- 
 ping-pong — ^wack!" and let fly. Wherever the arrow 
 pointed when it fell, there you must go — ^and if you 
 went far enough you would always find a treasure 
 ultimately; according to Skinny the Tramp, a crock 
 of gold. He had acquired the celluloid button in this 
 fashion — along with a lot of other rubbish. 
 
 Willie removed the leader from its resting-place and 
 went out into the back yard. Drawing a circle about 
 him with the arrow, he whirled it according to rule, 
 muttered "Poliko-boliko," and so on, and threw it with 
 all his might. The chestnut, operating according to 
 the laws of centrifugal force, at a tangent, made it 
 gyrate in a curiously disjointed fashion and it disap- 
 peared hurtling over the woodhouse in the direction of 
 
TOGGERY BILL 189 
 
 Main Street. Willie followed. The arrow pointed 
 indubitably toward the store window of Toggery Bill. 
 And there he found the crock of gold. 
 
 Does not this narrative unquestionably indicate the 
 part played by chance in human affairs? Read fur- 
 ther and perceive how it demonstrates that other, but 
 no less important, thesis that no man who possesses a 
 sense of humor can be truly bad. 
 
 When Mr. Meachem opened his side door the next 
 morning he discovered lying across the threshold an 
 envelope bearing upon its left-hand upper corner the 
 inscription : 
 
 "Phcenix House 
 
 Pottsville, N. Y. 
 
 Leading Hotel in the 
 
 Mohawk Valley 
 Rooms $1.50 and Up." 
 
 Inside was six dollars in new one-dollar bills, and 
 nine dollars in halves, quarters, dimes, and nickels, 
 with a sheet of paper bearing the words: "For the 
 stamps. W. Toothaker." 
 
 For a moment Mr. Meachem's face betrayed no 
 symptom of his inner thought; then a look of intense 
 satisfaction enwreathed his features. Hastily he re- 
 treated inside and closed the door. Then he stealthily 
 went into his store and peered through the curtains 
 across the street. There was a jagged hole in Tog- 
 gery Bill's window, the barrel of money was gone, and 
 
iQO TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 in place of the original sign appeared another in a 
 strange humpbacked scrawling chirography, strikingly 
 similar to that of the letter in his pocket : 
 
 "There was ixacktly ayteen dollars and seventy' 
 too cents in the barl, I no becuz I got neerest and 
 hav got it all." 
 
 Mr. Tutt was still asleep at ten minutes past nine 
 o'clock, when a hurried knock upon his bedroom door 
 partially roused him. 
 
 "Yes, Your Honor!" mumbled the old lawyer. 
 "Yes, certainly " 
 
 "Mr. Tutt! Mr. Tutt!" gasped a shrill treble 
 through the keyhole. "Mr. Gookin had Willie arrested 
 and put in the lockup along with Skinny the Tramp! 
 He says Willie committed burglary on his window an' 
 took the barrel of money! And Willie wants to see 
 you!" 
 
 "What's all this?" exclaimed Mr. Tutt, lifting him- 
 self upon his elbow. "Is that you, Betty? Heavens! 
 It's after nine o'clock !" 
 
 "Mr. Gookin says he's going to send Willie to prison 
 for ten years!" she cried tremulously, "You won't 
 let him, will you, Mr. Tutt?" 
 
 "Certainly not! Certainly not!" he replied, swing- 
 ing his old legs out of bed. "What did Willie do?" 
 
 "Mr. Gookin says he took his barrel of money !" 
 
 "What barrel of money?" 
 
 "The one he put in the window of his store." 
 
TOGGERY BILL 191 
 
 "Why does he think Willie took it?" 
 
 " 'Cause Willie left a sign." 
 
 Betty heard a gurgle from the direction of the wash- 
 stand. 
 
 "You tell Willie," directed Mr. Tutt in tones in- 
 dicating the active use of a towel, "that I'll defend 
 him, and not to worry. I'll be over at the jail in less 
 than ten minutes." 
 
 "All right!" she answered delightedly. "Thanks 
 awfully! I'll go over and tell him, and then I'll come 
 back and get you !" 
 
 There was nobody in the dining-room when Mr. Tutt 
 hurried downstairs three minutes later, and he was 
 obliged to go out to the kitchen to ask Mrs. Best for 
 a cup of coffee. 
 
 "I'm afraid Willie's done something terrible this 
 time!" said she. "But I never supposed he'd take 
 anything that didn't belong to him." 
 
 "Well, don't forget that he's presumed to be inno- 
 cent until proven otherwise!" he reminded her. "Be- 
 sides, he may not have had any criminal intent !" 
 
 "I guess Willie always has that!" she sighed. 
 
 Never had such excitement been known in Potts- 
 ville as that caused by the dual bill of Skinny the 
 Tramp's murder trial and Willie Toothaker's arrest 
 for burglary. Toggery Bill's ambition to start some- 
 thing had been gratified beyond his most reckless im- 
 aginings. For the sum of eighteen dollars and seven- 
 ty-two cents and a comparatively small bill from the 
 
192 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 glazier he had succeeded in making his sh6w window 
 an attraction drawing fully as well as the courthouse, 
 and indeed momentarily dwarfing it. "For Willie's 
 sign appealed strongly to the Mohawk Valley sense of 
 humor and nobody really liked Toggery Bill. Indeed 
 the whole town now seethed with anecdotes about the 
 erring William and his whimsical ways, as well as 
 with rather uncomplimentary reminiscences of Mr. 
 Gookin, his pride,, malice and general uncharitable- 
 ness. After all, there was only about nineteen dollars 
 in the barrel! A plain skin! And the throng that 
 gaped about the shattered window followed jeeringly 
 as Toggery Bill pompously descended his steps and 
 strutted smugly toward the courthouse to act in his 
 capacity of complainant against Willie on the charge 
 of burglary. 
 
 Genial old Judge Tompkins, from Lockport, who 
 rejoiced in several small grandsons of his own, had 
 been fully informed of all the circumstances of the 
 case by the time he went to court. Already he had 
 formed an attachment for Mr. Tutt, and the two 
 had passed several genial evenings together during the 
 progress of the Turkey Hollow case. He had not an- 
 ticipated, however, that Willie would have retained 
 such distinguished counsel. Yet when he came upon 
 the- bench and Prosecutor Mason stepped forward with 
 Toggery Bill to swear to the complaint he saw Mr. 
 Tutt rise and take the trembling Willie by the hand. ' 
 
 "This," announced Squire Mason, "is a complaint 
 for burglary against one William Toothaker, now 
 
TOGGERY BILL 193 
 
 present, for burglary in the first degree. It is made 
 before Your Honor in your capacity of committing 
 magistrate." 
 
 "Who represents the defendant?" inquired Judge 
 Tompkins over his spectacles. 
 
 "I do!" said Mr. Tutt amid suppressed enthusiasm 
 from the benches. 
 
 "When do you wish to be heard?" 
 
 "Now!" answered Mr. Tutt decidedly. 
 
 Toggery Bill looked apprehensively at Prosecutor 
 Mason. He was not anxious to have the case disposed 
 of immediately, as he wished to make the excitement 
 last as long as possible. But the squire only shrugged 
 his shoulders. 
 
 "The defendant is an infant," announced Mr. Tutt. 
 "He should not be detained in confinement a moment 
 longer than is necessary!" he declared, amid echoes 
 of "That's so r "Hear it now !" "Good for you !" 
 
 Judge Tompkins looked severely round and rapped 
 for order. 
 
 "I will take the matter up now and dispose of it 
 before proceeding with the case on trial." 
 
 So Toggery Bill, swelling like a blue pouter pigeon, 
 was sworn and told his story, identified the placard 
 left by Willie in the window, and testified to the loss 
 of his barrel of money. Then he turned complacently 
 to Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "Now you can ask me anythirig~youlwant,1said he 
 with confidence. 
 
 "I have only three questions,' MiyGogkin,ji'answered 
 
194 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 the lawyer with elaborate politeness, while silence fell 
 upon the multitude. 
 
 "Did you put a false bottom in your barrel in order 
 to make it appear that it was full of money when in 
 fact it was not?" 
 
 Toggery Bill grew slightly red. A suppressed hiss 
 writhed along the rear benches. He glared indignantly 
 at Mr. Tutt, whom he had hitherto regarded as his 
 friend. 
 
 "Why, ye-es," he admitted. 
 
 "Hm 1 Did you put a sign in your window asking 
 people how much money there was in the barrel?" 
 
 "Yes; sure. Here it is!" Toggery Bill drew it 
 from his pocket. 
 
 "I offer the sign in evidence," said Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "Receive it," said the judge shortly. 
 
 "One more question: Did you see the defendant 
 take a stamp out of Meachem's showcase?" 
 
 "No, but I saw him run after one !" retorted Gookin. 
 
 Mr. Tutt hesitated. 
 
 "I'm afraid I'll have to ask a fourth question," he 
 apologized. He turned fiercely upon Toggery Bill. 
 "Didn't you tell Mr. Meachem there that Toothaker 
 took the stamp out of the case?" 
 
 Gookin looked angrily at the proprietor of the no- 
 tion store. 
 
 "He may have taken it that way !" he answered lame- 
 ly. "What's that got to do with it anyhow?" 
 
 "If you wait a few moments you may find out," 
 replied the lawyer. 
 
TOGGERY BILL 195 
 
 Slowly, quietly, dramatically Mf. Tutt narrated 
 the story of Willie's misadventure with the Dom Pedro 
 triangulares, omitting no detail, and picturing vividly 
 every emotion experienced by the infant defendant, 
 while the bearded inhabitants of the Mohawk Valley 
 hung on his words, gazed at one another significantly, 
 and muttered that b'gosh it was just like a boy an' you 
 couldn't blame a kid fer playin' tricks, an' that this 
 here Toggery Bill and that feller Meachem were 
 nuthin' better 'n a pair of gol-durn crooks anyhow! 
 
 And then Mr. Tutt, with a twinkle in his eye that 
 only Judge Tompkins could see, suddenly waved his 
 long arms in the air and burst into such an eloquent 
 though technical plea for the release of Willie Tooth- 
 aker that Squire Mason stared at him open-mouthed 
 and the crowd in the court room burst from time to 
 time into audible appreciation, even if they all realized 
 that it was tosh, as indeed it was. 
 
 "Crime?" His repudiation was an echoing chal- 
 lenge to legal combat. "My client guilty of a crime? 
 Far from it ! The very opposite ! He was performing 
 a public service — ^that of showing up a fraud — a mis- 
 erable piece of deception, imposition, trickery, chi- 
 canery, artifice, duplicity and imposture — whereby this 
 man Gookin hoped to line his pockets with the hard- 
 earned dollars of his fellow townsmen. Did he not 
 shamelessly try to make them believe that his barrel 
 was full of money ? Did he not thus induce the honest, 
 trusting inhabitants of Pottsville to give their valuable 
 time to trying to calculate the amount of something 
 
196 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 that was not there? Thus, Your Honor, my client not 
 only had no criminal intent but, in fact, had a merito- 
 rious motive in doing what he did — if, in fact, he did 
 it!" 
 
 "That's so!" nodded a senile octogenarian from 
 Somerset Corners. "Yes, sir-ree !" And he spat ju- 
 dicially in the adjacent strawberry box filled with 
 sawdust. 
 
 "Secondly," continued Mr. Tutt impressively, "let 
 us examine the position of this man Gookin. What 
 did he, in fact, do ? Why, he invited the world to do 
 the very thing that is now charged against my client 
 as a crime. There can be no larceny or burglary with- 
 out a trespass; and there can be no trespass where 
 there is a consent on the part of the owner. What 
 sign did Gookin put in his window ? 'Whoever comes 
 nearest will get it all!' 'Who comes nearest' means 
 of course 'he who enters and removes it.' One could 
 not remove it — get nearest to it — without breaking the 
 window. Nothing could be clearer. It was a test 
 of the public's perspicacity and wit — solved by one 
 of Pottsville's youngest citizens. In fact, this man 
 Gookin agreed in writing that whoever got next to 
 the money might keep it, and he is now estopped to 
 deny that such was his intention, for the words of a 
 written contract cannot be varied by parol evidence!" 
 
 "Hear! Hear!" came from several directions. 
 
 "But"^and here Mr. Tutt turned with a denuncifi- 
 tory gesture toward where Mr. Meachem sat shrinking 
 on the corner of a neighboring bench — ^"but if any 
 
TOGGERY BILL 197 
 
 crime has been committed here it was perpetrated by 
 the rascal who sought to blackmail my innocent and 
 helpless client by means of the lie invented by the 
 wretched Gookin, whose life is one of falsehood. 
 Meachem, himself deceived by Gookin, seized the sup- 
 posed opportunity to, make the false charge against 
 my client and to threaten that unless he paid him a 
 sum of money far in excess of the value of the miss- 
 ing postage stamp he would have him haled away to 
 prison — ^and this was the inciting cause of my client's 
 severing the Gordian knot of the problem presented 
 by Gookin's money barrel, as he did — if, in fact, he 
 did it." 
 
 There was an undisguised murmur of surprise and 
 contempt from among the audience, who with one 
 accord peered at Meachem to see how he would take it. 
 
 "Say, judge, maybe Meachem put Willie up to it so's 
 he could get his money !" hoarsely whispered the pro- 
 prietor of the Mohawk Palace, who regarded himself 
 as an amicus curice. 
 
 Judge Tompkins glanced inquiringly at Prosecutor 
 Mason. 
 
 "This last is a rather serious charge," he remarked 
 gravely. "In fact, I regard it as more serious than 
 the one immediately before me." 
 
 The squire pursed his lips weightily. 
 
 "It certainly is!" he agreed. "But at best you'd 
 only have Willie's word for it." 
 
 "Wouldn't you take Willie's word?" asked His 
 
198 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Honor urbanely. "You've known him 'ever .'since 
 he wore knee breeches." 
 
 " 'Course, he would!" came from all sides. "Sure! 
 'Course he would." 
 
 "Yes — I reckon I would," cautiously admitted the 
 squire, under this public pressure. 
 
 "Willie," inquired His Honor, "do you wish to 
 make a charge of blackmail against Mr. Meachem?" 
 
 Willie shivered and stared fixedly at Mr. Tutt. It 
 was obvious that the term paralyzed his powers of 
 speech. 
 
 "I don't want to make charges agin' nobody!" he 
 quavered finally. 
 
 Judge Tompkins moistened his lower lip and medi- 
 tatively surveyed the court room. 
 
 "Citizens of Pottsville," said he, "we have here an 
 illustration of the complicated, far-reaching and ex- 
 traordinary results which often follow from a single 
 and comparatively trifling distortion of the truth. The 
 charge of burglary brought against this young man is 
 technically supported by some evidence, though it may 
 well be that he had no actual criminal intent. See 
 'what a tangled web we weave, when first we prac- 
 tise to deceive.' It is alleged by the defendant that 
 the complainant, Gookin, falsely accused the defendant 
 of larceny to Mr. Meachem — thus laying himself open 
 to a civil suit for damages for defamation of the de- 
 fendant's character ; and that Mr. Meachem thereupon 
 sought to compound a felony and to blackmail the de- 
 fendant into paying him money; he by so doing in- 
 
TOGGERY BILL 199 
 
 ducing a state of fear in the mind of a boy of pre- 
 viously good character, which led the latter to com- 
 mit a crime " 
 
 "If, in fact, he committed it," interjected Mr. Tutt 
 warningly. 
 
 The judge smiled. 
 
 " 'If, in fact, he committed it,' " he amended. "It 
 seems to me" — and here he lowered his voice and 
 looked first at Meachem, then at Squire Mason and 
 finally at Toggery Bill — "that the interests of the 
 public do not demand a further judicial investigation 
 of this unfortunate affair. If Mr. Gookin sees fit to 
 withdraw the complaint I will dismiss the proceeding ; 
 otherwise I shall instruct the district attorney to en- 
 tertain a charge of blackmail against Mr. Meachem 
 and shall appoint Mr. Tutt, if he desires it, a guardian 
 ad litem to bring an action for damages against Mr. 
 Gookin on behalf of the defendant. I do not pretend 
 to say that these charges would or could be sustained. 
 But what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the 
 gander. If justice is to be done let it be done to all 
 hands. Am I right?" 
 
 "Bully for you, judge !" cried a voice, while the citi- 
 zens of Pottsville showed their approval in the various 
 ways characteristic of the Mohawk Valley. 
 
 Squire Mason beckoned to Toggery Bill and the two 
 held a whispered conversation during which Mr. 
 Gookin was heard to inquire plaintively whether he 
 was going to get his money back. At this Meachem, 
 
200 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 who had said nothing up to that point, pulled out an 
 envelope. 
 
 "Here's fifteen dollars I found on my doorstep this 
 morning," he mumbled. "If you think it belongs to 
 you I — well, you kin have it." 
 
 Judge Tompkins busied himself ostentatiously with 
 the examination of his docket. Presently he raised his 
 eyes. Toggery Bill was stuffing something into his 
 pocket. 
 
 "Well?" inquired his Honor. 
 
 "The charge against William Toothaker is with- 
 drawn," Squire Mason informed him. 
 
 "The defendant is discharged," nodded Judge Tomp- 
 kins. "May I have a word with you, Mr. Tutt?" 
 And as the old lawyer approached the bench he re- 
 marked, "I think your client is wasted on Pottsville." 
 
 "So do I !" agreed Mr. Tutt. "Step up here, Vyillie. 
 What are you going to do now?" 
 
 Willie looked doubtful. 
 
 "I dunno," he answered. Then an inspiration came 
 to him. "I'd like to work for you — ^if you'd let me! 
 I could come back here sometimes, couldn't I ? And I 
 hate the Phoenix House and" — fie looked round fur- 
 tively — "the constable, an' Mr. Gookin. I'd do any- 
 thing you asked me, and you needn't pay me one cent!" 
 
 Mr. Tutt laid both his long bony hands on Willie's 
 thin little shoulders. 
 
 "You haven't any father or mother?" 
 
 "No, sir," answered Willie. 
 
TOGGERY BILL 201 
 
 Mr. Tutt whispered something to the judge about 
 night schools and electrical engineering. 
 
 "I'm going to turn you over to Mr. Tutt," said the 
 latter finally. "Maybe he'll make you a scientist, but 
 I tell him you're ingenious enough to be a criminal 
 lawyer !" 
 
 There was a confused scuffling of shoes outside in 
 the hallway and Constable Higgins hurried up the 
 aisle and bent over the dais. 
 
 "The jury's agreed on a verdict," he whispered to 
 the judge so everybody could hear him. "And it's 
 an acquittal!" 
 
 Mr. Tutt ran his arm under his erstwhile client's 
 chin and drew back the red tousled head until he 
 could smile down into the gray-blue eyes. 
 
 "Then we can go home!" said he. "Come along, 
 Willie." 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE 
 
 For 'tis the sport to have the engineer 
 Hoist with his own petar. — Hamlet. 
 
 It was a mouse by virtue of which Ephraim Tutt 
 had leaped into fame. It is true that other characters 
 famous in song and story — ^particularly in "Mother 
 Goose" — ^have similarly owed their celebrity in whole 
 or part to rodents, but there is, it is submitted, no other 
 case of a mouse, as mouse per se, reported in the 
 annals of the law, except Tutt's mouse, from Dooms- 
 day Book down to the present time. 
 
 Yet it is doubtful whether without his mouse Eph- 
 raim Tutt would ever have been heard of at all, and 
 same would equally have been true if when pursued 
 by the chef's gray cat the mouse aforesaid had jumped 
 in another direction. But as luck would have it, said 
 mouse leaped foolishly into an open casserole upon 
 a stove in the kitchen of the Comers Hotel, and Mr. 
 Tutt became in his way a leader of the bar. 
 
 It is quite true that the tragic end of the mouse 
 in question has nothing to do with our present narra- 
 tive except as a side light upon the vagaries of the 
 legal career, but it illustrates how an attorney, if he 
 expect to succeed in his profession, must be ready for 
 anything that comes along — even if it be a mouse. 
 
 The two Tutts composing the firm of Tutt & Tutt 
 
 202 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE 303 
 
 were both, at the time of the mouse case, comparatively 
 young men. Tutt was a native of Bangor, Maine, and 
 numbered among his childhood friends one Newbegin, 
 a commercial wayfarer in the shingle and clapboard 
 line; and as he hoped at some future time to draw 
 Newbegin's will or to incorporate for him some busi- 
 ness venture Tutt made a practise of entertaining his 
 prospective client at dinner upon his various visits to 
 the metropolis, first at one New York hostelry and 
 then at another. 
 
 Chance led them one night to the Comers, and there 
 amid the imitation palms and imitation French 
 waiters of the imitation French restaurant Tutt invited 
 his friend Newbegin to select what dish he chose from 
 those upon the bill of fare ; and Newbegin chose kid- 
 ney stew. It was at about that moment that the ad- 
 venture which has been referred to occurred in the 
 hotel kitchen. The gray cat was cheated of its prey, 
 and in due course the casserole containing the stew 
 was borne into the dining room and the dish was 
 served. 
 
 Suddenly Mr. Newbegin contorted his mouth and 
 exclaimed : 
 
 "Heck! A mouse!" 
 
 It was. The head waiter was summoned, the man- 
 ager, the owner. Guests and gargons crowded about 
 Tutt and Mr. Newbegin to inspect what had so unex- 
 pectedly been found. No one could deny that it was 
 mouse — cooked mouse; and Newbegin had ordered 
 kidney stew. Then Tutt had had his inspiration. 
 
204 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "You shall pay well for this !" he cried, frowning at 
 the distressed proprietor, while Newbegin leaned pite^ 
 ously against a papier-mache pillar. "This is an out- 
 rage ! You shall be held liable in heavy damages for 
 my client's indigestion!" 
 
 And thus Tutt & Tutt got their first case out of 
 Newbegin, for under the influence of the eloquence 
 of Mr. Tutt a jury was induced to give him a verdict 
 of one thousand dollars against the Comers Hotel, 
 which the Court of Appeals sustained in the follow- 
 ing words, quoting verbatim from the learned brief 
 furnished by Tutt & Tutt, Ephraim Tutt of counsel : 
 
 "The only legal question in the case, or so it ap- 
 pears to us, is whether there is such a sale of food 
 to a guest on the part of the proprietor as will sustain 
 a warranty. If we are not in error, however, the law 
 is settled and has been since the reign of Henry the 
 Sixth. In the Ninth Year Book of that Monarch's 
 reign there is a case in which it was held that 'if I go 
 to a tavern to eat, and the taverner gives and sells 
 me meat and it corrupted, whereby I am made very 
 sick, action lies against him without any express war- 
 ranty, for there is a warranty in law'; and in the 
 time of Henry the Seventh the learned Justice Keil- 
 way said, *No man can justify selling corrupt victual, 
 but an action on the case lies against the seller, whether 
 the victual was warranted to be good or not.' Now, 
 certainly, whether mouse meat be or be not deleterious 
 to health a guest at a hotel who orders a portion of 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE 205 
 
 kidney stew has the right to expect, and the hotel 
 keeper impliedly warrants, that such dish will contain 
 no ingredients beyond those ordinarily placed therein." 
 
 "A thousand dollars !" exulted Tutt when the verdict 
 was rendered. "Why, anyone would eat mouse for a 
 thousand dollars!" 
 
 The Comers Hotel became in due course a client of 
 Tutt & Tutt, and the mouse which made Mr, Tutt 
 famous did not die in vain, for the case became cele- 
 brated throughout the length and breadth of the land, 
 to the glory of the firm and a vast improvement in the 
 culinary conditions existing in hotels. 
 
 "Come in, Mr. Barrows ! Come right in ! I haven't 
 seen you for — ^well, how long is it?" exclaimed Mr. 
 Tutt, extending a long welcoming arm toward a human 
 scarecrow upon the threshold. 
 
 "Five years," answered the visitor. "I only got out 
 day, before yesterday. Fourteen months off for good 
 behavior." 
 
 He coughed and put down carefully beside him a 
 large dress-suit case marked E. V. B., Pottsville, N. Y. 
 
 "Well, well!" sighed Mr. Tutt, "So it is. How 
 time flies!" 
 
 "Not in Sing Sing !" replied Mr. Barrows ruefully. 
 
 "I suppose not. Still, it must feel good to be out!" 
 
 Mr. Barrows made no reply, but dusted off his 
 felt hat. He was but the shadow of a man, an old 
 man at that, as was attested by his long gray beard, 
 
2o6 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 his faded blu? eyes, and the thin white hair about his 
 fine domelike forehead. 
 
 "I forget what your trouble was about," said Mr. 
 Tutt gently. "Won't you have a stogy ?" 
 
 Mr. Barrows shook his head. 
 
 "I ain't used to it," he answered. "Makes me 
 cough." He gazed about him vaguely, 
 
 "Something about bonds, wasn't it?" asked Mr. 
 Tutt. 
 
 "Yes," replied Mr. Barrows; "Great Lakes and 
 Canadian Southern." 
 
 "Of course! Of course!" 
 
 "A wonderful property," murmured Mr. Barrows 
 regretfully. "The bonds were perfectly good. There 
 was a defect in the foreclosure proceedings which 
 made them a permanent underlying security of the re- 
 organized company — under The Northern Pacific R. 
 R. Co. vs. Boyd; you know — ^but the court refused 
 to hold that way. They never will hold the way you 
 want, will they?" He looked innocently at Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "No," agreed the latter with conviction, "they never 
 will!" 
 
 "Now those bonds were as good as gold," went on 
 the old man ; "and yet they said I had to go to prison. 
 You know all about it. You were my" lawyer." 
 
 "Yes," assented Mr. Tutt, "I remember all about 
 it now." 
 
 Indeed it had all come back to him with the vivid- 
 ness of a landscape seen during a lightning flash — the 
 crowded court, old Doc Barrows upon the witness 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE toj 
 
 stand, charged with getting money on the strength of 
 defauhed and outlawed bonds — ^picked up heaven 
 knows where — ^pathetically trying to persuade an un- 
 sympathetic court that for some reason they were 
 still worth their face value, though the mortgage se- 
 curing the debt which they represented had long since 
 been foreclosed and the money distributed. 
 
 "I'd paid for 'em — actual cash," he rambled on. 
 "Not much, to be sure — but real money. If I got 'em 
 cheap that was my good luck, wasn't it? It was be- 
 cause my brain was sharper than other folks' ! I said 
 they had value and I say so now — only nobody will 
 believe it or take the trouble to find out. I learned 
 a lot up there in Sing Sing too," he continued, warm- 
 ing to his subject. "Do you know, sir, there are for- 
 tunes lying all about us? Take gold, for instance! 
 There's a fraction of a grain in every ton of sea water. 
 But the big people don't want it taken out because it 
 would depress the standard of exchange. I say it's a 
 conspiracy — and yet they jailed a man for it! There's 
 great mineral deposits all about just waiting for the 
 right man to come along and develop 'em." 
 
 His lifted eye rested upon the engraving of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln over Mr. Tutt's desk. "There was a 
 man!" he exclaimed inconsequently ; then stopped and 
 ran his transparent, heavily veined old hand over his 
 forehead. "Where was I? Let me see. Oh, yes — 
 gold. All those great properties could be bought at 
 one time or another for a song. It needed a pioneer! 
 That's what I was — a pioneer to find the gold where 
 
2o8 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 other people couldn't find it. That's not any crime; 
 it's a service to humanity ! If only they'd have a little 
 faith — instead of locking you up. The judge never 
 looked up the law about those Great Lakes bonds! If 
 he had he'd have found out I was right! I'd looked 
 it up. I studied law once myself." 
 
 "I know," said Mr. Tutt, almost moved to tears by 
 the sight of the wreck before him. "You practised 
 up state, didn't you?" 
 
 "Yes," responded Doc Barrows eagerly. "And in 
 Chicago too. I'm a member of the Cook County bar. 
 I'll tell you something! If the Supreme Court of 
 Illinois hadn't been wrong in its law I'd be the richest 
 man in the world — in the whole world !" He grabbed 
 Mr. Tutt by the arm and stared hard into his eyes. 
 "Didn't I show you my papers? I own seven feet of 
 water front clean round Lake Michigan all through 
 the city of Chicago. I got it for a song from the man 
 who found out the flaw in the original title deed of 
 1817; he was dying. 'I'll sell my secret to you,' he 
 says, 'because I'm passing on. May it bring you 
 luck!' I looked it all up and it was just as he said. 
 So I got up a corporation — The Chicago Water Front 
 and Terminal Company-^and sold bonds to fight my 
 claim in the courts. But all the people who had deeds 
 to my land conspired against me and had me arrested ! 
 They sent me to the penitentiary. There's justice for 
 you!" 
 
 "That was too bad!" said Mr. Tutt in a soothing 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE 209 
 
 voice. "But after all what good would all that money 
 have done you?" 
 
 "I don't want money!" affirmed Doc plaintively. 
 "I've never needed money. I know enough secrets to 
 make me rich a dozen times over. Not money but 
 justice is what I want — my legal rights. But I'm tired 
 of fighting against 'em. They've beaten me! Yes, 
 they've beaten me ! I'm going to retire. That's why 
 I came in to see you, Mr. Tutt. I never paid you for 
 your services as my attorney. I'm going away. You 
 see my married daughter lost her husband the other 
 day and she wants me to come up and live with her on 
 the farm to keep her from being lonely. Of course 
 it won't be much like life in Wall Street — ^but I owe 
 her some duty and I'm getting on — I am, Mr. Tutt, 
 I really am!" 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 "And I haven't seen Louisa for three years — ^my 
 only daughter. I shall enjoy being with her. She 
 was such a dear little girl! I'll tell you another se- 
 cret" — ^his voice dropped to a whisper — "I've found 
 out there's a gold mine on her farm, only she doesn't 
 know it. A rich vein runs right through her cow 
 pasture. We'll be rich ! Wouldn't it be fine, Mr. Tutt, 
 to be rich? Then I'm going to pay you in real money 
 for all you've done for me — ^thousands! But until 
 then I'm going to let you have these — all my securities ; 
 my own, you know, every one of them." 
 
 He placed the suitcase in front of Mr. Tutt and 
 opened the clasps with his shaking old fingers. It 
 
210 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 bulged with bqnds, and he dumped them forth until 
 they covered the top of the desk. 
 
 "These are my jewels 1" he said. "There's millions 
 represented here!" He lifted one tenderly and held 
 it to the light, fresh as it came from the engraver's 
 press — a thousand dollar first-mortgage bond of The 
 Chicago Water Front and Terminal Company. "Look 
 at that! Good as gold — if the courts only knew the 
 law." 
 
 He took up a yellow package of valueless obliga- 
 tions, upon the top of which an old-fashioned loco- 
 motive, from whose bell-shaped funnel the smoke 
 poured in picturesque black clouds, dragging behind 
 it a chain of funny little passenger coaches, drove 
 furiously along beside a rushing river through fields 
 rich with corn and wheat amid a border of dollar signs. 
 
 "The Great Lakes and Canadian Southern," !he 
 crooned lovingly. "The child of my heart! The dis- 
 trict attorney kept all the rest — as evidence, he claimed, 
 but some day you'll see he'll bring an action against 
 the Lake Shore or the New York Central based on 
 these bonds. Yes, sir! They're all right!" 
 
 He pawed them over, picking out favorites here 
 and there and excitedly extolling the merits of the 
 imaginary properties they represented. There were 
 the repudiated bonds of Southern states and munici- 
 palities; of railroads upon whose tracks no wheel had 
 ever turned; of factories never built except in Doc 
 Barrows' addled brain; of companies which had de- 
 faulted and given stock for their worthless obliga- 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE" 2H 
 
 tions; certificates of oil, mining and land companies; 
 deeds to tracts now covered Vith sky scrapers in Pitts- 
 burgh, St. Louis and New York — each and every one 
 of them not worth the paper they were printed on 
 except to some crook who dealt in high finance. But 
 they were exquisitely engraved, quite lovely to look 
 at, and Doc Barrows gloated upon them with scintil- 
 lating eyes. 
 
 "Ain't they beauties?" he sighed. "Some day — 
 yes, sir!-^some day they'll be worth real money. I 
 paid i* for some of 'em. But they're yours — all yours." 
 
 He gathered them up with care and returned them to 
 the suitcase, - then fastened the clasps and patted the 
 leather cover with his hand. 
 
 "They are yours, sir !" he exclaimed dramatically. 
 
 "As you say," agreed Mr. Tutt, "there's gold lying 
 round everywhere if we only had sense enough to look 
 for it. But I think you're wise to retire. After all, 
 you have the satisfaction of knowing that your enter- 
 prises were sound even if other people disagreed with 
 you." 
 
 "If this was 1819 instead of 1919 I'd own Chicago," 
 began Doc, a gleam appearing in his eye. "But they 
 don't want to upset the status quo — that's why I 
 haven't got a fair chance. But they needn't worry! 
 I'd be generous with 'em — give 'em easy terms — long 
 leases and nominal rents." 
 
 "But you'll like living with your daughter, I'm 
 sure," said Mr. Tutt. "It will make a new man of 
 you in no time." 
 
212 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Healthiest spot in northern New York !" exclaimed 
 Doc. "Within two miles of a lake — ^fishing, shoot- 
 ing, outdoor recreation of all kinds, an ideal site for 
 a mammoth summer hotel." 
 
 Mr. Tutt rose and laid his arms round old Doc Bar- 
 rows' shoulders. 
 
 "Thank you a thousand times," he said gratefully, 
 "for the securities. I'll be glad to keep them for you 
 in my vault." His lips puckered in a stealthy smile 
 which he tried hard to conceal. 
 
 "Louisa may want to repaper the farmhouse some 
 time," he added to himself. 
 
 "Oh, they're all yours to keep!" insisted Doc. "I 
 want you to have them !" His voice trembled. 
 
 "Well, well!" answered Mr. Tutt. "Leave it that 
 way; but if you ever should want them they'll be here 
 waiting for you." 
 
 "I'm no Indian giver!" rq)lied Doc with dignity. 
 "Give, give, give a thing — ^never take it back again." 
 
 He laughed rather childishly. He was evidently 
 embarrassed. 
 
 "Could — could you let me have the loan of seventy- 
 five cents?" he asked shyly. 
 
 Down below, inside a doorway upon the other side 
 of the street, Sergeant Murtha of the Detective Bureau 
 waited for Doc Barrows to come out and be arrested 
 again. Murtha had known Doc for fifteen years as a 
 harmless old nut who had rarely succeeded in cheating 
 anybody, but who was regarded as generally undesir- 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE 213 
 
 able by the authorities and sent away every few years 
 in order to keep him out of mischief. There was no 
 danger that the public would accept Doc's version of 
 the nature or value of his securities, but there was 
 always the chance that some of his worthless bonds — 
 those bastard offsprings of his cracked old brain — 
 would find their way into less honest but saner hands. 
 So Doc rattled about from penitentiary to prison and 
 from prison to madhouse and out again, constantly 
 taking appeals and securing writs of habeas corpus, 
 and feeling mildly resentful, but not particularly so, 
 that people should be so interfering with his business. 
 Now as from force of long habit he peered out of the 
 doorway before making his exit ; he looked like one of 
 the John Sargent's prophets gone a little madder than 
 usual — a Jeremiah or a Habakkuk. 
 
 "Hello, Doc!" called Murtha in hearty, friendly 
 tones. "Hie spy ! Come on out !" 
 
 "Oh, how d'ye do, captain !" responded Doc. "How 
 are you? I was just interviewing my solicitor." 
 
 "Sorry," said Murtha. "The inspector wants to see 
 you." 
 
 Doc flinched. 
 
 "But they've just let me go !" he protested faintly. 
 
 "It's one of those old indictments — Chicago Water 
 
 Front or something. Anyhow Here! Hold on 
 
 to yourself!" 
 
 He threw his arms round the old man, who seemed 
 on the point of falling. 
 
 "Oh, captain! That's all over! I served time for 
 
214 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 that out in Illinois !" For some strange reason all the 
 insanity had gone out of his bearing. 
 
 "Not in this state," answered Murtha. New pity for 
 this poor old wastrel took hold upon him. "What were 
 you going to do?" 
 
 "I was going to retire, captain," said Doc faintly. 
 "My daughter's husband — he owned a farm up in 
 Cayuga County — well, he died and I was planning to 
 go up there and live with her." 
 
 "And sting all the boobs?" grinned Murtha not un- 
 sympathetically. "How much money have you got?" 
 
 "Seventy-five cents." 
 
 "How much is the ticket?" 
 
 "About nine dollars," quavered Doc. "But I know 
 a man down on Chatham Square who might buy a 
 block of stock in the Last Chance Gold Mining Com- 
 pany; I could get the money that way." 
 
 "What's the Last Chance Gold Mining Company?" 
 asked Murtha sharply. 
 
 "It's a company I'm going to organize. I'll tell you 
 a secret, Murtha. There's a vein of gold runs right 
 through my daughter Louisa's cow pasture — she 
 doesn't know anything about it " 
 
 "Oh, hell !" exclaimed Murtha. "Come along to the 
 station. I'll let you have the nine bones. And you can 
 put me down for half a million of the underwriting." 
 
 That same evening Mr. Tutt was toasting his carpet 
 slippers before the sea-coal fire in his library,, sipping 
 a hot toddy and rereading for the eleventh time the 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE 215 
 
 "Lives of the Chancellors" when Miranda, who had 
 not yet finished washing the few dishes incident to her 
 master's meager supper, pushed open the door and an- 
 nounced that a lady was calling. 
 
 "She said you'd know her sho' enough, Mis' Tutt," 
 grinned Miranda, swinging her dishrag, " 'case you and 
 she used to live tergidder when you was a young man." 
 
 This scandalous announcement did not have the 
 startling effect upon the respectable Mr. Tutt which 
 might naturally have been anticipated, since he was 
 quite used to Miranda's forms of expression. 
 
 "It must be Mrs. Effingham," he remarked, closing 
 the career of Lord Eldon and removing his feet from 
 the fender. 
 
 "Dat's who it is !" answered Miranda. "She's down- 
 stairs waitin' to come up." 
 
 "Well, let her come," directed Mr. Tutt, wondering 
 what his old boarding-house keeper could want of 
 him, for he had not seen Mrs. Effingham for more than 
 fifteen years, at which time she was well provided with 
 husband, three children and a going business. Indeed, 
 it required some mental adjustment on his part to 
 recognize the withered little old lady in widow's weeds 
 and rusty black with a gold star on her sleeve who so 
 timidly, a moment later, followed Miranda into the 
 room. 
 
 "I'm afraid you don't recognize me," she said with 
 a pitiful attempt at faded coquetry. "I don't blame 
 you, Mr. Tutt. You don't look a day older yourself. 
 But a great deal has happened to me!" 
 
2i6 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "I should have recognized you anywhere," he pro- 
 tested gallantly. "Do sit down, Mrs. Effingham, won't 
 you ? I am delighted to see you. How would you like 
 a glass of toddy? Just to show there's no ill-feeling!" 
 
 He forced a glass into her hand and filled it from 
 the teakettle standing on the hearth, while Miranda 
 brought a sofa cushion and tucked it behind the old 
 lady's back. 
 
 Mrs. Effingham sighed, tasted the toddy and leaned 
 back deliciously. She was very wrinkled and her hair 
 under the bonnet was startlingly white in contrast with 
 the crepe of her veil, but there were still traces of 
 beauty in her face. 
 
 "I've come to you, Mr. Tutt," she explained apolo- 
 getically, "because I always said that if I ever was in 
 trouble you'd be the one to whom I should go to help 
 me out." 
 
 "What greater compliment could I receive?" 
 
 "Well, in those days I never thought that time would 
 come," she went on. "You remember my husband — 
 Jim? Jim died two years ago. And little Jimmy-r- 
 our eldest — ^he was only fourteen when you boarded 
 with us — he was killed at the Front last July." She 
 paused and felt for her handkerchief, but could not find 
 it. "I still keep the house ; but do you know how old 
 I am, Mr. Tutt? I'm seventy-one! And the two 
 older girls got married long ago and I'm all alone ex- 
 cept for Jessie, the youngest — and I haven't told her 
 anything about it." 
 
J3 
 O 
 
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 3 
 O 
 
 J3 
 
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 J2 
 3 
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 '3 
 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE 217 
 
 "Yes?" said Mr. Tutt sympathetically. "What 
 haven't you told her about?" 
 
 "My trouble. You see, Jessie's not a well girl — she 
 really ought to live out West somewhere, the doctor 
 says — and Jim and I had saved up all these years so 
 that after we were gone she would have something to 
 live on. We saved twelve thousand dollars — and put 
 it into Government bonds." 
 
 "You couldn't have anything safer, at any rate," re- 
 marked the lawyer. "I think you did exceedingly 
 well." 
 
 "Now comes the awful part of it all!" exclaimed 
 Mrs. E^ngham, clasping her hands. "I'm afraid it's 
 gone — gone forever. I should have consulted you first 
 before I did it, but it all seemed so fair and above-board 
 that I never thought." 
 
 "Have you got rid of your bonds?" 
 
 "Yes — no — ^that is, the bank has them. You see I 
 borrowed ten thousand dollars on them and gave it to 
 Mr. Badger to invest in his oil company for me." 
 
 Mr. Tutt groaned inwardly. Badger was the most 
 celebrated of Wall Street's near-financiers. 
 
 "Where on earth did you meet Badger?" he de- 
 manded. 
 
 "Why, he boarded with me — for a long time," she 
 answered. "I've no complaint to make of Mr. Badger. 
 He's a very handsome polite gentleman. And I don't 
 feel altogether right about coming to you and saying 
 anything that might be taken against him — but lately 
 I've heard so many things " 
 
2i8 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Don't worry about Badger!" growled Mr. Tutt. 
 "How did you come to invest in his oil stock?" 
 
 "I was there when he got the telegram telling how 
 they had found oil on the property; it came one night 
 at dinner. He was tickled to death. The stock had 
 been selling at three cents a share, and, of course, after 
 the oil was discovered he said it would go right up 
 to ten dollars. But he was real nice about it — he said 
 anybody who had been living there in the house could 
 share his good fortune with him, come in on the ground 
 floor, and have it just the same for three cents. A 
 week later there came a photograph of the gusher and 
 almost all of us decided to buy stock." 
 
 At this point in the narrative Mr. Tutt kicked the 
 coal hod violently and uttered a smothered ejaculation. 
 
 "Of course I didn't have any ready money," ex- 
 plained Mrs. Effingham, "but I had the bonds — they 
 only paid two per cent and the oil stock was going to 
 pay twenty — and so I took them down to the bank and 
 borrowed ten thousand dollars on them. I had to sign 
 a note and pay five per cent interest. I was making 
 the difference — fifteen hundred dollars every year." 
 
 "What has it paid?" demanded Mr. Tutt ironically. 
 
 "Twenty per cent," replied Mrs. Effingham. "I get 
 Mr. Badger's check regularly every six months." 
 
 "How many times have you got it?" 
 
 "Twice." 
 
 "Well, why don't you like your investment?" In- 
 quired Mr. Tutt blandly. "I'd like something that 
 would pay me twenty per cent a year!" 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE 219 
 
 "Because I'm afraid Mr. Badger isn't quite truthful, 
 and one of the ladies — that old Mrs. Channing; you 
 remember her, don't you — ^the one with the curls? — • 
 she tried to sell her stock and nobody would make a 
 bid on it at all — and when she spoke to Mr. Badger 
 about it he became very angry and swore right in 
 front of her. Then somebody told me that Mr. Badger 
 had been arrested once for something — ^and — 
 and Oh, I wish I hadn't given him the money, be- 
 cause if it's lost Jessie won't have anything to live on 
 after I'm dead — and she's too sick to work. What do 
 you think, Mr. Tutt? Do you suppose Mr. Badger 
 would buy the stock back?" 
 
 Mr. Tutt smiled grimly. 
 
 "Not if I know him ! Have you got your stock with 
 you?" 
 
 She nodded. Fumbling in her black bag she pulled 
 forth a flaring certificate — of the regulation kind, not 
 even engraved — which evidenced that Sarah Maria 
 Ann Effingham was the legal owner of three hundred 
 and thirty thousand shares of the capital stock of the 
 Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and Llano Estacado 
 Land Company. 
 
 Mr. Tutt took it gingerly between his thumb and 
 forefinger. It was signed Alfred Haynes Badger, 
 Pres., and he had an almost irresistible temptation to 
 twist it into a spill and light a stogy with it. But he 
 used a match instead, while Mrs. Effingham watched 
 him apprehensively. Then he handed the stock back 
 to her and poured out another glass of toddy. 
 
220 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Ever been in Mr. Badger's office?" 
 
 "Oh, yes !" she answered. "It's a lovely office. You 
 can see 'way down the harbor — ^and over to New Jer- 
 sey. It's real elegant." 
 
 "Would you mind going there again? That is, 
 are you on friendly terms with him ?" 
 
 Already a strange, rather desperate plan was half 
 formulated in his mind. 
 
 "Oh, we're perfectly friendly," she smiled. "I gen- 
 erally go down there to get my check." 
 
 "Whose check is it — ^his or the company's ?" 
 
 "I really don't know," she answered simply. "What 
 difiference would it make?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing — except that he might claim that he'd 
 loaned you the money." 
 
 "Loaned it? To me?" 
 
 "Why, yes. One hears of such things." 
 
 "But it is my money !" she cried, stiffiening. 
 
 "You paid that for the stock." 
 
 She shook her head helplessly. 
 
 "I don't understand these things," she murmured. 
 "If Jim had been alive it wouldn't have happened. He 
 was so careful." 
 
 "Husbands have some uses occasionally." 
 
 Suddenly she put her hands to her face. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Tutt! Please get th^ money back from 
 him. If you don't something terrible will happen to 
 Jessie!" 
 
 "I'll do my best," he said gently, laying his hand on 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE 221 
 
 her fragile shoulder. "But I may not be able to do it 
 — and anyhow I'll need your help." 
 
 "What can I do?" 
 
 "I want you to go down to Mr. Badger's office to- 
 morrow morning and tell him that -you are so much 
 pleased with your investment that you would like td 
 turn all your securities over to him to sell and put the 
 money into the Great Geyser Texan Petroleum and 
 Llano Estacada Land Company." 
 
 He rolled out the words with unction. 
 
 "But I don't!" 
 
 "Oh, yes, you do!" he assured her. "You want to 
 do just what I tell you, don't you ?" 
 
 "Of course," she answered. "But I thought you 
 didn't like Mr. Badger's oil company." 
 
 "Whether I like it or not makes no difference. I 
 want you to say just what I tell you." 
 
 "Oh, very well, Mr. Tutt." 
 
 "Then you must tell him about the note, and that 
 first it will have to be paid off." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And then you must hand him a letter which I will 
 dictate to you now." 
 
 She flushed slightly, her eyes bright with excitement. 
 
 "You're sure it's perfectly honest, Mr. Tutt? I 
 wouldn't want to do anything unfair !" 
 
 "Would you be honest with a burglar?" 
 
 "But Mr. Badger isn't a burglar !" 
 
 "No — he's only about a thousand times worse. He's 
 
222 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 a robber of widows and orphans. He isn't man 
 enough to take a chance at housebreaking." 
 
 "I don't know what you mean," she sighed. "Where 
 shall I write?" 
 
 Mr. Tutt cleared a space upon his desk, handed her 
 a pad and dipped a pen in the ink while she took off 
 her gloves. 
 
 "Address the note to the bank," he directed. 
 
 She did so. 
 
 "Now say: 'Kindly deliver to Mr. Badger all the 
 securities I have on deposit with you, whenever he 
 pays my note. Very truly yours, Sarah Maria Ann 
 Effingham.' " 
 
 "But I don't want him to have my securities!" she 
 retorted. 
 
 "Oh, you won't mind ! You'll be lucky to get Mr. 
 Badger to take back your oil stock on any terms. Leave 
 the certificate with me," laughed Mr. Tutt, rubbing his 
 long thin hands together almost gleefully. "And now 
 as it is getting rather late perhaps you will do me the 
 honor of letting me escort you home." 
 
 It was midnight before Mr. Tutt went to bed. In the 
 first place he had felt himself so neglectful of Mrs. 
 Effingham that after he had taken her home he had 
 sat there a long time talking over the old lady's affairs 
 and making the acquaintance of the phthisical Jessie, 
 who turned out to be a wistful little creature with great 
 liquid eyes and a delicate transparent skin that foretold 
 only too clearly what was to be her future. There was 
 only one place for her, Mr. Tutt told himself — Ari- 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE 223 
 
 zona; and by the grace of God she should go there, 
 Badger or no Badger! 
 
 As the old lawyer walked slowly home with his 
 hands clasped behind his back he pondered . upon the 
 seeming mockery and injustice of the law that forced 
 a lonely, half-demented old fellow with the fixed de- 
 lusion that he was a financier behind prison bars and 
 left free the sharp slick crook who had no bowels or 
 mercies and would snatch away the widow's mite and 
 leave her and her consumptive daughter to die in the 
 poorhouse. Yet such was the case, and there they all 
 were ! Could you blame people for being Bolsheviks ? 
 And yet old Doc Barrows was as far from a Bolshevik 
 as anyone could well be. 
 
 Mr. Tutt passed a restless night, dreaming, when he 
 slept at all, of mines from which poured myriads of 
 pieces of yellow gold, of gushers spouting columns of 
 blood-red oil hundreds of feet into the air, and of 
 old-fashioned locomotives dragging picturesque trains 
 of cars across bright green prairies studded with cacti 
 in the shape of dollar signs. Old Doc Barrows was 
 with him, and from time to time he would lean toward 
 him and whisper, "Listen, Mr. Tutt, I'll tell you a 
 secret ! There's a vein of gold runs right through my 
 daughter's cow pasture !" 
 
 When Willie next morning at half past eight reached 
 the office he found the door already unlocked and Mr. 
 Tutt busy at his desk, up to his elbows in a great mass 
 of bonds and stock certificates. 
 
 "Gee !" he exclaimed to Miss Sondheim, the stenog- 
 
224 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 rapher, when she made her appearance at a quarter 
 past nine. "Just peek in the old man's door if you 
 want to feel rich! Say, he must ha' struck pay dirt! 
 I wonder if we'll all get a raise?" 
 
 But all the securities on Mr. Tutt's desk would not 
 have justified even the modest advance of five dollars 
 in Miss Sondheim's salary, and their employer was 
 merely sorting out and making an inventory of Doc 
 Barrows' imaginary wealth. By the time Mrs. Effing- 
 ham arrived by appointment at ten o'clock he had them 
 all arranged and labeled ; and in a special bundle neatly 
 tied with a piece of red tape were what on their 
 face were securities worth upward of seventy thousand 
 dollars. There were ten of the beautiful bonds of the 
 Great Lakes and Canadian Southern Railroad Com- 
 pany with their miniature locomotives and fields of 
 wheat, and ten equally lovely bits of engraving belong- 
 ing to the long-since defunct Bluff Creek and Iowa 
 Central, ten more superb lithographs issued by the 
 Mohawk and Housatonic in 1867 and paid off in 1882, 
 and a variety of gorgeous chromos of Indians and 
 buffaloes, and of factories and steamships spouting 
 clouds of soft-coal smoke ; and on the top of all was a 
 pile of the First Mortgage Gold Six Per Cent obliga- 
 tions of the Chicago Water Front and Terminal Com- 
 pany — all of them fresh and crisp, with that faintly 
 acrid smell which though not agreeable to the nostrils 
 nevertheless delights the banker's soul. 
 
 "Ah F Good morning to you, Mrs. Effingham !" Mr. 
 Tutt cried, waving her in when that lady was an- 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE 225 
 
 nounced. "You are not the only millionaire, you see! 
 In fact, I've stumbled into a few barrels of securities 
 myself — only I didn't pay anything for them." 
 
 "Gracious!" cried Mrs. Effingham, her eyes lighting 
 with astonishment. "Wherever did you get them? 
 And such exquisite pictures! Look at that lamb!" 
 
 "It ought to have been a wolf !" muttered Mr. Tutt. 
 "Well, Mrs. Effingham, I've decided to make you a 
 present — ^just a few pounds of Chicago Water Front 
 and Canadian Southern — ^those over there in that pile ; 
 and now if you say so we'll just go along to your bank." 
 
 "Give them to me !" she protested. "What on earth 
 for? You're joking, Mr. Tutt." 
 
 "Not a bit of it!" he retorted. "I don't make any 
 pretensions as to the value of my gift, but they're yours 
 for whatever they're worth." 
 
 He wrapped them carefully in a piece of paper and 
 returned the balance to Doc Barrows' dress-suit case. 
 
 "Aren't you afraid to leave them that way?" she 
 asked, surprised. 
 
 "Not at all! Not at all!" he laughed. "You see 
 there are fortunes lying all about us everywhere if 
 we only know where to look. Now the first thing 
 to do is to get your bonds back from the bank." 
 
 Mr. Thomas McKeever, the popular loan clerk of 
 the Mustardseed National, was just getting ready for 
 the annual visit of the state bank examiner when Mr. 
 Tutt, followed by Mrs. Effingham, entered the ex- 
 quisitely furnished boudoir where lady clients were in- 
 duced by all modern conveniences except manicures 
 
226 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 and shower baths to become depositors. Mr. Tutt and 
 Mr. McKeever belonged to the same Saturday evening 
 poker game at the Colophon Club, familiarly known as 
 The Bible Class. 
 
 "'Morning, Tom," said Mr. Tutt. "This is my 
 client, Mrs. "Effingham. You hold her note, I believe, 
 for ten thousand dollars secured by some government 
 bonds. She has a use for those bonds and I thought 
 that you might be willing to take my indorsement in- 
 stead. You know I'm good for the money." 
 
 "Why, I guess we can accommodate her, Mr. Tutt !" 
 answered the Chesterfieldian Mr. McKeever. "Cer- 
 tainly we can. Sit down, Mrs. Effingham, while I 
 send for your bonds. See the morning paper?" 
 
 Mrs. Effingham blushingly acknowledged that she 
 had not seen the paper. In fact, she was much too ex- 
 cited to see anything. 
 
 "Sign here!" said the loan clerk, placing the note 
 before the lawyer. 
 
 Mr. Tutt indorsed it in his strange, humpbacked 
 chirography. 
 
 "Here are your bonds," said Mr. McKeever, hand- 
 ing Mrs. Effingham a small package in a manila en- 
 velope. She took them in a half-frightened way, as 
 if she thought she was doing something wrong. 
 
 "And now," said Mr. Tutt, "the lady would like a 
 box in your safe-deposit vaults; a small one — about 
 five dollars a year — ^will do. She has quite a bundle of 
 securities with her, which I am looking into. Most if 
 not all of them are of little or no value, but I have told 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE 227 
 
 her she might just as well leave them as security for 
 what they are worth, in addition to my indorsement. 
 Really it's just a slick game of ours to get the bank to 
 look after them for nothing. Isn't it, Mrs. Effing- 
 ham?" 
 
 "Ye-es!" stammered Mrs. Effingham, not under- 
 standing what he was talking about. 
 
 "Well," answered Mr. McKeever, "we never refuse 
 
 collateral. I'll put the bonds with the note " His 
 
 eye caught the edges of the bundle. "Great Scott, 
 Tutt! What are you leaving all these bonds here 
 for against that note? There must be nearly a hun- 
 dred thousand dol " 
 
 "I thought you never refused collateral, Mr. Mc- 
 Keever!" challenged Mr. Tutt sternly. 
 
 Twenty minutes later the exquisite blonde that acted 
 as Mr. Badger's financial accomplice learned from Mrs. 
 Effingham's faltering lips that the widow would like 
 to see the great man in regard to further investments. 
 
 "How does it look, Mabel?" inquired the financier 
 from behind his massive mahogany desk covered with 
 a six by five sheet of plate glass. "Is it a squeal or a 
 fall?" 
 
 "Easy money," answered Mabel with confidence. 
 "She wants to put a mortgage on the farm." 
 
 "Keep her about fourteen minutes, tell her the story 
 of my philanthropies, and then shoot her in," directed 
 Badger. 
 
 So Mrs. Effingham listened ^politely while Mabel 
 
228 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 showed her the photographs of Mr. Badger's home for 
 consumptives out in Tyrone, New Mexico, and of his 
 wife and children, taken on the porch of his summer 
 home at Seabright, New Jersey ; and then, exactly four- 
 teen minutes having elapsed, she was shot in. 
 
 "Ah! Mrs. Effingham! Delighted! Do be seated!" 
 Mr. Badger's smile was lilce that of the boa constrictor 
 about to swallow the rabbit. 
 
 "About my oil stock," hesitated Mrs. Effingham. 
 
 "Well, what about it?" demanded Badger sharply. 
 "Are you dissatisfied with your twenty per cent?" 
 
 "Oh, no !" stammered the old lady, "Not at all! I 
 just thought if I could only get the note paid off at the 
 Mustardseed Bank I might ask you to sell the collateral 
 and invest the proceeds in your gusher." 
 
 "Oh !" Mr. Badger beamed with pleasure. "Do you 
 really wish to have me dispose of your securities for 
 you?" 
 
 He did not regard it as necessary to inquire into the 
 nature of the collateral. If it was satisfactory to. the 
 Mustardseed National it must of course exceed con- 
 siderably the amount of the note. 
 
 "Yes," answered Mrs. Effingham timidly; and she 
 handed him the letter dictated by Mr. Tutt. 
 ' "Well," replied Mr. Badger thoughtfully, after read- 
 ing it, "what you ask is rather unusual — quite unusual, 
 I may say, but I think I may be able to attend to the 
 matter for you. Leave it in my hands and think no 
 more about it. How have you been, my dear Mrs. 
 Effingham? You're looking extraordinarily well!" 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE 229 
 
 Mr. McKeever had about concluded his arrange- 
 ments for welcoming the state bank examiner when 
 the telephone on his desk buzzed, and on taking up 
 the receiver he heard the ingratiating voice of Alfred 
 Haynes Badger. 
 
 "Is this the Loan Department of the Mustardseed 
 National?" 
 
 "It is," he answered shortly. 
 
 "I understand you hold a note of a certain Mrs. 
 Effingham for ten thousand dollars. May I ask if it 
 is secured?" 
 
 "Who is this?" snapped McKeever. 
 
 "One of her friends," replied Mr. Badger amicably. 
 
 "Wel)^ we don't discuss our clients' affairs over the 
 telephone. You had better come in here if you have 
 any inquiries to make." 
 
 "But I want to pay the note," expostulated Mr. 
 Badger. 
 
 "Oh ! Well, anybody can pay the note who wants 
 to." 
 
 "And of course in that case you would turn over 
 whatever collateral is on deposit to secure the note?" 
 
 "If we were so directed." 
 
 "May I ask what collateral there is?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "There is some collateral, I suppose?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, I have an order from Mrs. Effingham direct- 
 ing the bank to turn over whatever securities she has 
 on deposit as collateral, on my payment of the note." 
 
230 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "In that case you'll get 'em," said Mr. McKeever 
 grufHy. "I'll get them out and have 'em ready for 
 you." 
 
 "Here is my certified check for ten thousand dol- 
 lars," announced Alfred Haynes Badger a few minutes 
 later. "And here is the order from Mrs. Effingham. 
 Now will you kindly turn over to me all the securi- 
 ties?" 
 
 Mr. McKeever, knowing something of the reputa- 
 tion of Mr. Badger, first called up the bank which had 
 certified the latter' s check, and having ascertained that 
 the certification was genuine he marked Mrs. Effing- 
 ham's note as paid and then took down from the top 
 of his roll-top desk the bundle of beautifully engraved 
 securities given him by Mr. Tutt. Badger watched 
 him greedily. 
 
 "Thank you," he gurgled, stuffing them into his 
 pocket. "Much obliged for your courtesy. Perhaps 
 you would like me to open an account here?" 
 
 "Oh, anybody can open an account who wants to," 
 remarked Mr. McKeever dryly, turning away from him 
 to something else, 
 
 Mr. Badger fairly flew back to his office. The ex- 
 quisite blonde had hardly ever before seen him exhibit 
 so much agitation. 
 
 "What have you pulled this time?" she inquired 
 dreamily. "Father's daguerreotype and the bracelet 
 of mother's hair?" 
 
 "I've grabbed off the whole bag of tricks !" he cried. 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE 231 
 
 "Look at 'em I We've riot seen so much of the real 
 stuff in six months. 
 
 "Ten — ^twenty — thirty — forty — fifty By gad! 
 
 — sixty — seventy !" 
 
 "What are they?" asked Mabel curiously. "Some 
 bonds — what?" 
 
 "I should say so!" he retorted gaily. "Say, girlie, 
 I'll give you the swellest meal of your young life to- 
 night! Chicago Water Front and Terminal, Great 
 Lakes and Canadian Southern, Mohawk and Housa- 
 tonic, Bluff Creek and Iowa Central. 'Oh, Mabel!' " 
 
 It was at just about this period of the celebration 
 that Mr. Tutt entered the outer office and sent in his 
 name ; and as Mr. Badger was at the height of his good 
 humor he condescended to see him. 
 
 "I have called," said Mr. Tutt, "in regard to the 
 bonds belonging to my client, Mrs. Effingham. I see 
 you have them on the desk there in front of you. Un- 
 fortunately she has changed her mind. She has decided 
 not to have you dispose of her securities." 
 
 Mr. Badger's expression instantly became hostile and 
 defiant. 
 
 "It's too late!" he replied. "I have paid off her 
 note and I am going to carry out the rest of the ar- 
 rangement." 
 
 "Oh," said Mr. Tutt, "so you are going to sell all 
 her securities and put the proceeds into your bogus oil 
 company — whether she wishes it or not? If you do 
 the district attorney will get after you." 
 
 "I stand on my rights," snarled Badger. "Anyhow 
 
232 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 I can sell enough of the securities to pay myself back 
 my ten thousand dollars." 
 
 "And then you'll steal the rest?" inquired Mr. Tutt. 
 "Be careful, my dear sirf Remember there is such a 
 thing as equity, and such a place as Sing Sing." 
 
 Badger gave a cynical laugh. 
 
 "You're too late, my friend! I've got a written 
 order — a written order — from your client, as you call 
 her. She can't go back on it now. I've got the bonds 
 and I'm going to dispose of them." 
 
 "Very well," said Mr. Tutt tolerantly. "You can 
 do as you see fit. But" — and he produced ten genuine 
 one-thousand-dollar bills and exhibited them to Mr. 
 Badger at a safe distance — "I now on behalf of Mrs. 
 Effingham make you a legal tender of the ten thous- 
 and dollars you have just paid out to cancel her note, 
 and I demand the return of the securities. Incidentally 
 I beg to inform you that they are not worth the paper 
 they are printed on." 
 
 "Indeed!" sneered Badger. "Well, my dear old 
 friend, you might have saved yourself the trouble of 
 coming round here. You and your client can go 
 straight to hell. You can keep the money; I'll keep 
 the bonds. See?" 
 
 Mr. Tutt sighed and shook his head hopelessly. 
 
 Then he put the bills back into his pocket and started 
 slowly for the door. 
 
 "You absolutely and finally decline to give up the 
 securities?" he asked plaintively. 
 
WILE VERSUS GUILE 233 
 
 "Absolutely and finally !" mocked Mr. Badger with 
 a sweeping bow. 
 
 "Dear! Dear!" almost moaned Mr. Tutt. "I'd 
 heard of you a great many times but I never realized 
 before what an unscrupulous man you were ! Anyhow, 
 I'm glad to have had a look at you. By the way, if you 
 take the trouble to dig through all that junk you'll find 
 the certificate of stock in the Great Jehoshaphat Oil 
 Company you used to Aim flam Mrs. Effingham with 
 out of her ten thousand dollars. Maybe you can use it 
 on someone else ! Anyhow, she's about two thousand 
 dollars to the good. It isn't every widow who can get 
 twenty per cent and then get her money back in fuU." 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 
 
 "No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or 
 outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed — nor will we go upon 
 or send upon him — save by the lawful jiidgment of his peers 
 or by the law of the land." 
 
 — Magna Charta, Sec. 39. 
 
 " 'Somebody has been lying in my bed — and here she is,' cried 
 the Little, Small, Wee Bear, in his little, small, wee voice." 
 
 — The Three Bears. 
 
 One of the nicest men in New York was Mr. John 
 De Puyster Hepplewhite. The chief reason for his 
 niceness was his entire satisfaction with, himself and 
 the padded world in which he dwelt, where he was as 
 protected from all shocking, rough or otherwise un- 
 pleasant things as a shrinking debutante from the 
 coarse universe of fact. Being thus shielded from 
 every annoyance and irritation by a host of sycophants 
 he lived serenely in an atmosphere of unruffled calm, 
 gazing down benignly and with a certain condescension 
 from the rarefied altitude of his Fifth Avenue win- 
 dows, pleased with the prospect of life as it appeared 
 to him to be and only slightly conscious of the vile- 
 ness of his fellow man. 
 
 Certainly he was not conscious at all of the existence 
 of the celebrated law firm of Tutt & Tutt. Such vulgar 
 persons were not of his sphere. His own lawyers were 
 gray-headed, dignified, ^rather smart attorneys who 
 
 234 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 235 
 
 moved only in the best social circles and practised their 
 profession with an air of elegance. When Mr. Hepple- 
 white needed advice he sent for them and they came, 
 chatted a while in subdued easy accents, and went away 
 — like cheerful tindertakers. Nobody ever spoke in 
 loud tones near Mr. Hepplewhite because Mr. Hepple- 
 white did not like an)rthing loud — not even clothes. 
 He was, as we have said, quite one of the nicest men 
 in New York. 
 
 At the moment when Mrs. Witherspoon made her 
 appearance he was sitting in his library reading a 
 copy of "Sainte-Beuve" and waiting for Bibby, the 
 butler, to announce tea. It was eight minutes to five 
 and there was still eight minutes to wait; so Mr. Hep- 
 plewhite went on reading "Sainte-Beuve." 
 
 Then "Mrs. Witherspoon!" intoned Bibby, and Mr. 
 Hepplewhite rose quickly, adjusted his eyeglass and 
 came punctiliously forward. 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Witherspoon !" he exclaimed crisply. 
 "I am really delighted to see you. It was quite charm- 
 ing of you to give me this week-end." 
 
 "Adorable of you to ask me, Mr. Hepplewhite!" re- 
 turned the lady. "I've been looking forward to this 
 visit for weeks. What a sweet room! Is that a 
 Corot?" 
 
 "Yes— yes !" murmured her host modestly. "Rather 
 nice, I think, eh? I'll show you my few belongings 
 after tea. Now will you go upstairs first or have tea 
 first?" 
 
236 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Just as you say," beamed Mrs. Witherspoon. "Per- 
 haps I had better run up and take off my veil." 
 
 "Whichever you prefer," he replied chivalrously. 
 "Do exactly as you like. -Tea will be ready in a couple 
 of minutes." 
 
 "Then I think I'll run up." 
 
 "Very well. Bibby, show Mrs. Witherspoon " 
 
 "Very good, sir. This way, please, madam. Stockin', 
 fetch Mrs. Witherspoon's bag from the hall." 
 
 Mr. Hepplewhite stood rubbing his delicate hands 
 in front of the fire, telling himself what a really great 
 pleasure it was to have Mrs. Witherspoon staying with 
 him over the week-end. He was having a dinner party 
 for her that evening — of forty-eight. All that it had 
 been necessary for him to do to have the party was to 
 tell Mr. Sadducee, his secretary, that he wished to 
 have it and direct him to send the invitations from 
 List Number One and then to tell Bibby the same 
 thing and to order the chef to serve Dinner Number 
 Four — only to have Johannisberger Cabinet instead of 
 Niersteiner. 
 
 All these things were highly important to Mr. Hep- 
 plewhite, for upon the absolute smoothness with which 
 tea and dinner were served and the accuracy with 
 which his valet selected socks to match his tie his 
 entire happiness, to say nothing of his peace of mind, 
 depended. His daily life consisted of a series of sub- 
 dued and nicely adjusted social events. They were 
 forecast for months ahead. Nothing was ever dotie 
 on the spur of the moment at Mr. Hepplewhite's. 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 237 
 
 He could tell to within a couple of seconds just exactly 
 what was going to occur during the balance of the day, 
 the remainder of Mrs. Witherspoon's stay and the 
 rest of the month. It would have upset him very 
 much not to know exactly what was going to happen, 
 for he was a meticulously careful host and being a crea- 
 ture of habit the unexpected was apt to agitate him 
 extremely. 
 
 So now as he stood rubbing his hands it was in the 
 absolute certainty that in just a few more seconds 
 one of the footmen would appear between the tapestry 
 portieres bearing aloft a silver tray with the tea things, 
 and then Bibby would come in with the paper, and 
 presently Mrs. Witherspoon would come down and 
 she would make tea for him and they would talk about 
 tea, and Aiken, and whether the Abner FuUertons 
 were going to get a domestic or foreign divorce, and 
 how his bridge was these days. It would be very 
 nice, and he rubbed his hands very gently and waited 
 for the Dresden clock to strike five in the subdued and 
 decorous way that it had. But he did not hear it 
 strike. 
 
 Instead a shriek rang out from the hall above, fol- 
 lowed by yells and feet pounding down the stairs. Mr. 
 Hepplewhite turned cold and something hard rose 
 up in his throat. His sight dimmed. And then Bibby 
 burst in, pale and with protruding eyes. 
 
 "There was a man in the guest room!" he gasped. 
 "Stockin's got him. What shall we do?" 
 
 At that moment Mrs. Witherspoon followed. 
 
238 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite! Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite !" 
 wshe gasped, staggering toward him. 
 
 Mr. Hepplewhite would have taken her in his arms 
 and attempted to comfort her only it was not done 
 in Mr. Hepplewhite's set unless under extreme provo- 
 cation. So he pressed an armchair upon her; or, 
 rather, pressed her into an armchair; and leaned 
 against the bookcase feeling very faint. He was ex- 
 tremely agitated. 
 
 "S-send for the police! S-s-send for B-burkl" he 
 stuttered. Burk was a husky watchman who also 
 acted as a personal guard for Mr. Hepplewhite. 
 
 An alarm began to beat a deafening staccato in the 
 hall outside the library. Bibby rushed gurgling from 
 the room. Several tall men in knee breeches and silk 
 stockings dashed excitedly up and down stairs using 
 expressions such as had never before been heard by 
 Mr. Hepplewhite, and the clanging gong of a police 
 wagon was audible as it clattered up the Avenue. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Hepplewhite," whispered Mrs. Wither- 
 spoon, unconsciously seeking his hand. "I never was 
 so frightened in my life!" 
 
 Then the gong stopped and the police poured into 
 the house and up the stairs. There were mufHed noises 
 and suppressed ejaculations of "Aw, come on there, 
 now ! I've got him, Mike ! No funny business now, 
 you ! Come along quiet !" 
 
 The whole house seemed blue with policemen, and 
 Mr. Hepplewhite became aware of a very fat man in 
 a blue cap marked Captain, who removed the cap 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 239 
 
 deferentially and otherwise indicated that he was mak- 
 ing obeisance. Behind the fat man stood three other 
 equally fat men, who held between them with grim 
 firmness, by arm, neck and shoulder, a much smaller 
 — in fact, quite a small — ^man, shabby, unkempt, and 
 with a desperate look upon his unshaven face. 
 
 "We've got him, all right, Mr. Hepplewhite !" ex- 
 ulted the captain, obviously grateful that God had 
 vouchsafed to deliver the criminal into his and not into 
 other hands. "Shall I take him to the house — or do 
 you want to examine him ?" 
 
 "I?" ejaculated Mr. Hepplewhite. "Mercy, no! 
 Take him away as quickly as possible !" 
 
 "As you say, sir," wheezed the captain. "Come 
 along, boys! Take him over to court and arraign 
 him!" 
 
 "Yes, do !" urged Mrs. Witherspoon. "And arraign 
 him as hard as you can; for he really frightened me 
 nearly to death, the terrible man !" 
 
 "Leave him to me, ma'am!" adjured the captain. 
 "Will you have your butler act as complainant, sir?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Why — ^yes — Bibby will do whatever is proper," 
 agreed Mr. Hepplewhite. "It will not be necessary 
 for me to go to court, will it?" 
 
 "Oh, no !" answered the captain. "Mr. Bibby will 
 do all right. I suppose we had better make the charge 
 burglary, sir?" 
 
 "I suppose so," replied Mr. Hepplewhite vaguely. 
 
 "Get on, boys," ordered the captain. "Good even- 
 
240 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 ing, sir. Good evening, ma'am. Step lively, you!" 
 
 The blue cloud faded away, bearing with it both 
 Bibby and the burglar. Then the third footman 
 brought the belated tea. 
 
 "What a frightful thing to have happen!" grieved 
 Mrs. Witherspoon as she poured out the tea for Mr. 
 Hepplewhite. "You don't take cream, do you?" 
 
 "No, thanks," he answered. "I find too much cream 
 hard to digest. I have to be rather careful, you 
 know. By the way, you haven't told me where the 
 burglar was or what he was doing when you went into 
 the room." 
 
 "He was in the bed," said Mrs. Witherspoon. 
 
 "In the 'Decay of Lying,' Mr. Tutt," said Tutt 
 thoughtfully, as he dropped in for a moment's chat 
 after lunch, "Oscar Wilde says, 'There is no essential 
 incongruity between crime and culture.' " 
 
 The senior partner removed his horn-rimmed spec- 
 tacles and carefully polished the lenses with a bit of 
 chamois, which he produced from his watch pocket, 
 meanwhile resting the muscles of his forehead by ele- 
 vating his eyebrows until he somewhat resembled an 
 inquiring but good-natured owl. 
 
 "That's plain enough," he replied, "The most highly 
 cultivated people are often the most unscrupulous. I 
 go Oscar one better and declare that there is a distinct 
 relationship between crime and progress!" 
 
 "You don't say, now!" ejaculated Tutt. "How do 
 you make that out?" 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 241 
 
 Mr. Tutt readjusted his spectacles and slowly se- 
 lected a stogy from the bundle in the dusty old cigar 
 box. 
 
 "Crime," he announced, "is the violation of the will 
 of the majority as expressed in the statutes. The law 
 is wholly arbitrary and depends upon public opinion. 
 Acts which are crimes in one century or country be- 
 come virtues in another, and vice versa. Moreover, 
 there is no difference, except one of degree, between 
 infractions of etiquette and of law, each of which ex- 
 presses the feelings and ideas of society at a given 
 moment. Violations of good taste, manners, morals, 
 illegalities, wrongs, crimes — they are all fundamentally 
 the same thing, the insistence on one's own will in de- 
 fiance of society as a whole. The man who keeps 
 his hat on in a drawing-room is essentially a criminal 
 because he prefers his own way of doing things to 
 that adopted by his fellows." 
 
 "That's all right," answered Tutt. "But how about 
 progress ?" 
 
 "Why, that is simple," replied his partner. "The 
 man who refuses to bow to habit, tradition, law — 
 who thinks for himself and acts for himself, who 
 evolves new theories, who has the courage of his con- 
 victions and stakes his life and liberty upon them — 
 that man is either a statesman, a prophet or a criminal. 
 And in the end he is either hailed as a hero and a liber- 
 ator or is burned, cast into prison or crucified." 
 
 Tutt looked interested. 
 
 "Well, now," he returned, helping himself from the 
 
242 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 box, "I never thought of it, but, of course, it's true. 
 Your proposition is that progress depends on develop- 
 ment and development depends on new ideas. If the 
 new idea is contrary to those of society it is probably 
 criminal. If its inventor puts it across, gets away with 
 it, and persuades society that he is right he is a leader 
 in the march of progress. If he fails he goes to jail. 
 Hence the relationship between crime and progress. 
 Why not say that crime is progress?" 
 
 "If successful it is," answered Mr. Tutt. "But the 
 moment it is successful it ceases to be crime." 
 
 "I get you," nodded Tutt. "Here to-day it is a 
 crime to kill one's grandmother; but I recall reading 
 that among certain savage tribes to do so is regarded 
 as a highly virtuous act. Now if I convince society 
 that to kill one's grandmother is a good thing it ceases 
 to be a crime. Society has progressed. I am a public 
 benefactor." 
 
 "And if you don't persuade society you go to the 
 chair," remarked Mr. Tutt laconically. ^ 
 
 "To use another illustration," exclaimed Tutt, warm- 
 ing to the subject, "the private ownership of property 
 at the present time is recognized and protected by the 
 law, but if we had a Bolshevik government it might be 
 a crime to refuse to share one's property with others." 
 
 "In that case if you took your share of another's , 
 property by force, instead of being a thief you would 
 be a Progressive," smiled his partner. 
 
 Tutt rubbed his forehead. 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 243 
 
 "Looking at it that way, you know," said he, "makes 
 it seem as if criminals were rather to be admired." 
 
 "Well, some of them are, and a great multitude of 
 them certainly were," answered Mr. Tutt. "All the 
 early Christian martyrs were criminals in the sense 
 that they were law-breakers." 
 
 "And Martin Luther," suggested Tutt. 
 
 "And Garibaldi," added Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "And George Washington — maybe?" hazarded the 
 junior partner. 
 
 Mr. Tutt shrugged his high shoulders. 
 
 "You press the analogy a long way, but — in a sense 
 every successful revolutionist was in the beginning a 
 criminal — as every rebel is and perforce must be," he 
 replied. 
 
 "So," said Tutt, "if you're a big enough criminal 
 you cease to be a criminal at all. If you're going to be 
 a crook, don't be a piker — it's too risky. Grab every- 
 thing in sight. Exterminate a whole nation, if pos- 
 sible. ^ Don't be a common garden highwayman or 
 pirate; be a Napoleon or a Willy Hohenzollern." 
 
 "You have the idea," replied Mr. Tutt. "Crime is 
 unsuccessful defiance of the existing order of things. 
 Once rebellion rises to the dignity of revolution, mur- 
 der becomes execution and the murderers become bel- 
 ligerents. Therefore, as all real progress involves a 
 change in or defiance of existing law, those who advo- 
 cate progress are essentially criminally minded, and if 
 they attempt to secure progress by openly refusing to 
 obey the law they are actual criminals. Then if they 
 
244 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 prevail, and from being in the minority come into 
 power, they are taken out of jail, banquets are given 
 in their honor, and they are called patriots and heroes. 
 Hence the close connection between crime and prog- 
 ress." 
 
 Tutt scratched his chiri doubtfully. 
 
 "That sounds pretty good," he admitted, "but" — ^and 
 he shook his head — "there's something the matter with 
 it. It doesn't work except in the case of crimes in- 
 volving personal rights and liberties. I see your point 
 that all progressives are criminals in the sense that 
 they are 'agin the law' as it is, but — I also see the hole 
 in your argument, which is that the fact that all pro- 
 gressives are criminals doesn't make all criminals pro- 
 gressive. Your proposition is only a half truth." 
 
 "You're quite wrong about my theory being a half 
 truth," retorted Mr. Tutt. "It is fundamentally sound. 
 The fellow who steals a razor or a few dollars is re- 
 garded as a mean thief, but if he loots a trust company 
 or takes a million he's a financier. The criminal law, 
 I maintain, is administered for the purpose of pro- 
 tecting the strong from the weak, the successful from 
 the unsuccessful, the rich from the poor. And, sir" — 
 Mr. Tutt here shook his fist at an imaginary jury — 
 "the man who wears a red necktie in violation of the 
 taste of his community or eats peas with his knife is 
 just as much a criminal as a man who spits on the 
 floor when there's a law against it. Don't you agree 
 with me ?" 
 
 "I do not!" replied Tutt. "But that makes no dif- 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 245 
 
 ference. Nevertheless what you say about the crim- 
 inal law being devised to protect the rich from the 
 poor interests me very much — very much indeed. But 
 I think there's a flaw in that argument too, isn't there? 
 Your proposition is true only to the extent that the 
 criminal law is invoked to protect property rights — 
 and not life and liberty. Naturally the laws that pro- 
 tect property are chiefly of benefit to those who have 
 it— the rich." 
 
 "However that may be," declared Mr. Tutt fiercely, 
 "I claim that the criminal laws are administered, in- 
 terpreted and construed in favor of the rich as against 
 the liberties of the poor, for the simple reason that the 
 administrators of the criminal law desire to curry favor 
 with the powers that be." 
 
 "The moral of which all is," retorted the other, 
 "that the law ought to be very careful about locking 
 up people." 
 
 "At any rate those who have violated laws upon 
 which there can be a legitimate difference of opinion," 
 agreed Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "That's where we come in," said Tutt. "We make 
 the difference — even if there never was any before." 
 
 Mr. Tutt chuckled. 
 
 "We perform a dual service to society," he de- 
 clared. "We prevent the law from making mistakes 
 and so keep it from falling into disrepute, and we 
 show up its weak points and thus enable it to be im- 
 proved." 
 
 "And incidentally we keep many a future states- 
 
246 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 man and prophet from going to prison," said Tutt. 
 "The name of the last one was Solomon Rabinovitch 
 — and he was charged with stealing a second-hand 
 razor from a colored person described in the papers 
 as one Morris Cohen." 
 
 How long this specious philosophic discussion would 
 have continued is problematical had it not been inter- 
 rupted by the entry of a young gentleman dressed with 
 a somewhat ostentatious elegance, whose wizened face 
 bore an expression at once of vast good nature and of 
 a deep and subtle wisdom. 
 
 It was clear that he held an intimate relationship 
 to Tutt & Tutt from the familiar way in which he 
 returned their cordial, if casual, salutations. 
 
 "Well, here we are again," remarked Mr. Doon 
 pleasantly, seating himself upon the corner of Mr. 
 Tutt's desk and spinning his bowler hat upon the fore- 
 finger of his left hand. "The hospitals are empty. 
 The Tombs is as dry as a bone. Everybody's good and 
 every day'll be Sunday by and by." 
 
 "How about that man who stole a razor?" asked 
 Tutt. 
 
 "Discharged on the ground that the fact that he 
 had a full beard created a reasonable doubt," replied 
 Doon. "Honestly there's nothing doing in my line — 
 unless you want a tramp case." 
 
 "A tramp case !" exclaimed Tutt & Tutt. 
 
 "I suppose you'd call it that," he answered blandly. 
 "I don't think he was a burglar. Anyhow- he's in the 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 247 
 
 Tombs now, shouting for a lawyer. I listened to him 
 and made a note of the case." 
 
 Mr. Tutt pushed over the box of stogies and leaned 
 back attentively. 
 
 "You know the Hepplewhite house up on Fifth 
 Avenue — that great stone one with the driveway?" 
 
 The Tutts nodded. 
 
 "Well, it appears that the prisoner — our prospective 
 client — was snooping round looking for something 
 to eat and found that the butler had left the front door 
 slightly ajar. Filled with a natural curiosity to ob- 
 serve how the other half lived, he thrust his way cau- 
 tiously in and found himself in the main hall — hung 
 with tapestry and lined with stands of armor. No one 
 was to be seen. Can't you imagine him standing there 
 in his rags — the Weary Willy of the comic supple- 
 ments — gazing about him at the oh jets d'art, the old 
 masters, the onyx tables, the statuary — ^wondering 
 where the pantry was and whether the housekeeper 
 would be more likely to feed him or kick him out?" 
 
 "Weren't any of the domestics about?" inquired 
 Tutt. 
 
 "Not one. They were all taking an afternoon oflf, 
 except the third assistant second man who was reading 
 'The Pilgrim's Progress' in the servants' hall. To re- 
 sume, our friend was not only very hungry, but very 
 tired. He had walked all the way from Yonkers, and 
 he needed everything from a Turkish bath to a mani- 
 curing. He had not been shaved for weeks. His feet 
 sank almost out of sight in the thick nap of the 
 
248 TUTT AND MR, TUTT 
 
 carpets. It was quiet, warm, peaceful in there. A 
 sense of relaxation stole over him. He haited to go 
 away, he says, and he meditated no wrong. But he 
 wanted to see what it was like upstairs. 
 
 "So up he went. It was like the palace of 'The 
 Sleeping Beauty.' Everywhere his eyes were soothed 
 by the sight of hothouse plants, marble floors, price- 
 less rugs,, luxurious divans " 
 
 "Stop!" cried Tutt. "You are making me sleepy!" 
 
 "Well, that's -what it did to him. He wandered along 
 the upper hall, peeking into the different rooms, until 
 finally he came to a beautiful chamber finished entirely 
 in pink silk. It had a pink rug — of silk ; the furniture 
 was upholstered in pink silk, the walls were lined with 
 pink silk and in the middle of the room was a great 
 big bed with a pink silk coverlid and a canopy of the 
 same. It seemed to him that that bed must have been 
 predestined for him. Without a thought for the mor- 
 row he jumped into it, pulled the coverlid over his 
 head and went fast asleep. 
 
 "Meanwhile, at tea time Mrs. De Lancey Wither- 
 spoon arrived for the week-end. Bibby, the butler, 
 followed by Stocking, the second man, bearing the hand 
 luggage, escorted the guest to the Bouguereau Room, 
 as the pink-silk chamber is called." 
 
 Mr. Bonnie Doon, carried away by his own powers 
 of description, waved his hand dramatically at the 
 old leather couch against the side wall, in which Weary 
 Willy was supposed to be reclining. 
 
 "Can't you see 'em?" he declaimed. "The haughty 
 
 .ti:i« 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 249 
 
 Bibby with nose in air, preceding the great dame of 
 fashion, enters the pink room and comes to attention, 
 'This way, madam!' he declaims, and Mrs. Wither- 
 spoon sweeps across the threshold." Bonnie Doon, 
 picking up an imaginary skirt, waddled round Mr. Tutt 
 and approached the couch. Suddenly he started back. 
 
 "Oh, la, la!" he half shrieked, dancing about. 
 "There is a man in the bed \" 
 
 Both Tutts stared hard at the couch as if fully ex- 
 pecting to see the form of Weary Willy thereon. Bon- 
 nie Doon had a way of making things appear very 
 vivid. 
 
 "And sure enough," he concluded, "there underneath 
 the coverlid in the middle of the bed was a huddled 
 heap with a stubby beard projecting like Excalibur 
 from a 'pink silk lake!" 
 
 "Excuse me," interrupted Tutt. "But may I ask 
 what this is all about?" 
 
 "Why, your new case, to be sure," grinned Bonnie, 
 who, had he been employed by any other firm, might 
 have run the risk of being regarded as an ambu- 
 lance chaser. "To make a long and tragic story short, 
 they sent for the watchman, whistled for a policeman, 
 telephoned for the hurry-up wagon, and haled the 
 sleeper away to prison — where he is now, waiting to 
 be tried." 
 
 "Tried!" ejaculated Mr. Tutt. "What for?" 
 
 "For crime, to be sure," answered Mr. Donn. 
 
 "What crime?" 
 
 "I don't know. They'll find one, of course." 
 
2 so TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Mr. Tutt swiftly lowered his legs from the desk 
 and brought his fist down upon it with a bang. 
 
 "Outrageous! What was I just telling you, Tutt!" 
 he cried, a flush coming into his wrinkled face. "This 
 poor man is a victim of the overzealousness which 
 the officers of the law exhibit in protecting the privi- 
 leges and property of the rich. If John De Puyster 
 Hepplewhite fell asleep in somebody's vestibule the po- 
 liceman on post would send him home in a cab; but if 
 a hungry tramp does the same thing he runs him in. 
 If John De Puyster Hepplewhite should be arrested for 
 some crime they would let him out on bail; while the 
 tramp is imprisoned for weeks awaiting trial, though 
 under the law he is presumed to be innocent. Is he 
 presumed to be innocent? Not much! He is pre- 
 sumed to be guilty, otherwise he would not be there. 
 But what is he presumed to be guilty of ? That's what 
 I want to know ! Just because this poor man — ^hungry, 
 thirsty and weary — happened to select a bed belonging 
 to John De Puyster -Hepplewhite to lie on he is thrown 
 into prison, indicted by a grand jury, and tried for 
 felony! Ye gods! 'Sweet land of liberty !' " 
 
 "Well, he hasn't been tried yet," replied Bonnie 
 Doon. "If you feel that way about it why don't you 
 defend him?" 
 
 "I will 1" shouted Mr. Tutt, springing to his feet. 
 "I'll defend him and acquit him !" 
 
 He seized his tall hat, placed it upon his head and 
 strode rapidly through the door. 
 
 "He will too!" remarked Bonnie, winking at Tutt, 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 251 
 
 "He thinks that tramp is either a statesman or a 
 prophet !" mused Tutt, his mind reverting to his part- 
 ner's earlier remarks. 
 
 "He won't think so after he's seen him," replied Mr, 
 Doon. 
 
 It sometimes' happens that those who seek to estab- 
 lish great principles and redress social evils involve 
 others in an involuntary martyrdom far from their 
 desires. Mr. Tutt would have gone to the electric 
 chair rather than see the Hepplewhite Tramp, as he 
 was popularly called by the newspapers, convicted of a 
 crime, but the very fact that he had become his legal 
 champion interjected a new element into the situation, 
 particularly as O'Brien, Mr. Tutt's arch enemy in the 
 district attorney's office, had been placed in charge of 
 the case. 
 
 It would have been one thing to let Hans Schmidt — 
 that was the tramp's name — go, if after remaining in 
 the Tombs until he had been forgotten by the press 
 he could have been unobtrusively hustled over the 
 Bridge of Sighs to freedom. Then there would have 
 been no comeback. But with Ephraim Tutt breathing 
 fire and slaughter, accusing the police and district at- 
 torney of being trucklers to the rich and great, and 
 oppressors of the poor — ^law breakers, in fact — 
 O'Brien found himself in the position of one having 
 an elephant by the tail and unable to let go. 
 
 In fact, it looked as if the case of the Hepplewhite 
 Tramp might become a political issue. That there was 
 something of a comic side to it made it all the worse. 
 
252 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Holy cats, boys!" snorted District Attorney Peck- 
 ham to the circle of disgruntled police officers and as- 
 sistants gathered about him on the occasion described 
 by the reporters as his making a personal investigation 
 of the case, "Why in the name of common sense didn't 
 you simply boot the fellow into the street?" 
 
 "I wish we had, counselor!" assented the captain 
 of the Hepplewhite precinct mournfully. "But we 
 thought he was a burglar. I guess he was, at that — 
 and it was Mr. Hepplewhite's house." 
 
 "I've heard that until I'm sick of it !" retorted Peck- 
 ham. 
 
 "One thing is sure — if we turn him out now Tutt 
 will sue us all for false arrest and put the whole ad- 
 ministration on the bum," snarled O'Brien. 
 
 "But ,1 didn't know the tramp would get Mr. Tutt 
 to defend him," expostulated the captain. "Anyhow, 
 ain't it a crime to go to sleep in another man's bed ?" 
 
 "If it ain't it ought to be !" declared his plain-clothes 
 man sententiously. "Can't you indict him for bur- 
 glary?" 
 
 "You can indict all day; the thing is to convict!" 
 snapped Peckham. "It's up to you, O'Brien, to square 
 this business so that the law is vindicated — somehow. 
 It must be a crime to go into a house on Fifth Avenue 
 and use it as a hotel. Why, you can't cross the street 
 faster than a walk these days without committing a 
 crime. Everything's a crime." 
 
 "Sure thing," agreed the captain. "I never yet 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 253 
 
 had any trouble finding a crime to charge a man with, 
 once I got the nippers on him." 
 
 "That's so," interjected the plain-clothes man. "Did 
 you ever know it was a crime to mismanage a steam 
 boiler? Well, it is." 
 
 "Quite right," agreed Mr. Magnus, the indictment 
 clerk. "The great difficulty for the perfectly honest 
 man nowadays is to avoid some act or omission which 
 the legislature has seen fit to make a crime without his 
 knowledge. Refilling a Sarsaparilla bottle, for in- 
 stance, or getting up a masquerade ball or going fish- 
 ing or playing on Sunday or loitering about a building 
 to overhear what people are talking about inside " 
 
 "That's no crime," protested the captain scornfully. 
 
 "Yes, it is too!" retorted Mr. Magnus, otherwise 
 known to his fellows as Caput, because of his sup- 
 posed cerebral inflation. "Just like it is a crime to 
 have any kind of a show or procession on Sunday ex- 
 cept a funeral, in which case it's a crime to make a 
 disbursing noise at it." 
 
 "What's a disbursing noise?" demanded O'Brien. 
 
 "I don't know," admitted Magnus. "But that's the 
 law anyway. You can't make a disbursing noise at 
 a funeral on Sunday." 
 
 "Oh, hell !" ejaculated the captain. "Come to think 
 of it, it's a crime to spit. What man is safe?" 
 
 "It occurs to me," continued Mr. Magnus thought- 
 fully, "that it is a crime under the law to build a 
 house on another man's land; now I should say that 
 
254 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 there was a close analogy between doing that and 
 sleeping in his bed." 
 
 "Heart Hear !" commented O'Brien. "Caput Mag- 
 nus, otherwise known as Big Head, there is no doubt 
 but that your fertile brain can easily devise a way out 
 of our present difficulty." 
 
 "Well, I've no time to waste on tramp cases," re- 
 marked District Attorney Peckham. "I've something 
 more important to attend to. Indict this fellow and 
 send him up quick. Charge him with everything in 
 sight and trust in the Lord. That's the only thing to 
 be done. Don't bother me about it, that's all !" 
 
 Meantime Mr. Hepplewhite became more and more 
 agitated. Entirely against his will and, so far as he 
 could see, without any fault of his own, he suddenly 
 found himself the center of a violent and acrimonious 
 controversy respecting the fundamental and sacred 
 rights of freemen which threatened to disrupt society 
 and extinguish the supremacy of the dominant local 
 political organization. 
 
 On the one hand he was acclaimed by the conserva- 
 tive pulpit and press as a public-spirited citizen who 
 had done exactly the right thing — distinterestedly en- 
 forced the law regardless of his own convenience and 
 safety as a matter of principle and for the sake of the 
 community — a moral hero; on the other, though he 
 was president of several charitable organizations and 
 at least one orphan asylum he was execrated as a 
 heartless brute, an oppressor of the poor, an octopus, 
 a soulless capitalist who fattened on the innocent and 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 255 
 
 helpless and who — Mr. Hepplewhite was a bachelor 
 — probably if the truth could be known lived a life of 
 horrid depravity and crime. 
 
 Indeed there was a man named Tutt, of whom Mr. 
 Hepplewhite had never before heard, who publicly 
 declared that he, Tutt, would show him, Hepplewhite, 
 up for what he was and make him pay with his body 
 and his blood, to say nothing of his money, for what 
 he had done and caused to be done. And so Mr. Hep- 
 plewhite became even more agitated, until he dreamed 
 of this Tutt as an enormous bird like the fabled roc, 
 with a malignant face and a huge hooked beak that 
 some day would nip him in the abdomen and fly, croak- 
 ing, away with him. Mrs. Witherspoon had returned 
 to Aiken, and after the first flood of commiserations 
 from his friends on Lists Numbers One, Two, Three 
 and Four he felt neglected, lonely and rather fearful. 
 
 And then one morning something happened that 
 upset his equanimky entirely. He had just started out 
 for a walk in the park when a flashy person who looked 
 like an actor walked impudently up to him and handed 
 him a piece of paper in which was wrapped a silver 
 half dollar. In a word Mr. Hepplewhite was sub- 
 poenaed and the nervous excitement attendant upon 
 that operation nearly caused his collapse. For he was 
 thereby commanded to appear before the Court of Gen- 
 eral Sessions of the Peace upon the following Monday 
 at ten a. m. as a witness in a criminal action prosecuted 
 by the People of the State of New York against Hans 
 Schmidt. Moreover, the paper was a dirty-brown 
 
2S6 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 color and bore the awful name of Tutt. He returned 
 immediately to tHe house and telephoned for Mr. Edg- 
 erton, his lawyer, who at once jumped into a taxi on 
 the corner of Wall and Broad Streets and hurried up- 
 town. 
 
 "Edgerton," said Hepplewhite faintly as the lawyer 
 entered his library, "this whole unfortunate affair has 
 almost made me sick. I had nothing to do with the 
 arrest of this man Schmidt. The police did everything. 
 And now I'm ordered to appear as a witness! Why, 
 I hardly looked at the man. I shouldn't know him if 
 I saw him. Do I have to go to court?" 
 
 Mr. Edgerton smiled genially in a manner which he 
 thought would encourage Mr. Hepplewhite. 
 
 "I suppose you'll have to go to court. You can't 
 help that, you know, if you've been subpoenaed. But 
 you can't testify to anything that I can see. It's just 
 a formality." 
 
 "Formality !" groaned his client. • "Well, I supposed 
 the arrest was just a formality." 
 
 Mr. Edgerton smiled again rather unconvincingly. 
 
 "Well, you see, you can't always tell what will hap- 
 pen when you once start something," he began. 
 
 "But I didn't start anything," answered Mr. Hepple- 
 white. "I had nothing to say about it." 
 
 At that moment Bibby appeared in the doorway. 
 
 "Excuse me, sir," he said. "There is a young man 
 outside who asked me to tell you that he has a paper 
 he wishes to serve on you — and would you mind saving 
 him the trouble of waiting for you to go out?" 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 257 
 
 "Another!" gagged Mr. Hepplewhite. 
 
 "Yes, sir ! Thank you, sir," stammered Bibby. 
 
 Mr. Hepplewhite looked inquiringly at Mr. Edger- 
 ton and rose feebly. 
 
 "He'll get you sooner or later," declared the lawyer. 
 "A man as well known as you can't avoid process." 
 
 Mr. Hepplewhite bit his lips and went out into the 
 hall. 
 
 Presently he returned carrying a legal-looking bunch 
 of papers. 
 
 "Well, what is it this time?" asked Edgerton jo- 
 cosely. 
 
 "If s a suit for false imprisonment for one hundred 
 thousand dollars !" choked Mr. Hepplewhite. 
 
 Mr. Edgerton looked shocked. 
 
 "Well, now you've got to convict him !" he declared. 
 
 "Convict him ?" retorted Mr. Hepplewhite. "I don't 
 want to convict him. I'd gladly give a hundred thou- 
 sand dollars to get out of the — the — darn thing!" 
 
 Which was as near profanity as he had ever per- 
 mitted himself to go. 
 
 Upon the following Monday Mr. Hepplewhite pro- 
 ceeded to court — flanked by his distinguished counsel 
 in frock coats and tall hats — simply because he had 
 been served with a dirty-brown subpoena by Tutt & 
 Tutt; and his distress was not lessened by the crowd 
 of reporters who joined him at the entrance of the 
 Criminal Courts Building; or by the flashlight bomb 
 that was exploded in the corridor in order that the 
 
2S8 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 evening papers might reproduce his picture on the 
 front page. He had never been so much in the public 
 eye before, and he felt slightly defiled. For some 
 curious reason he had the feeling that he and not 
 Schmidt was the actual defendant charged with being 
 guilty of something; nor was this impression dispelled 
 even by listening to the indictment by which the Grand 
 Jury charged Schmidt in eleven counts with burglary 
 in the first, second and third degrees and with the 
 crime of entering his, Hepplewhite's, house under cir- 
 cumstances not amounting to a burglary but with intent 
 to commit a felony, as follows: 
 
 "Therefore, to wit, on the eleventh day of January, 
 in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and 
 nineteen in the night-time of the said day at the ward, 
 city and county aforesaid the dwelling house of one 
 John De Puyster Hepplewhite, there situate, felo- 
 niously and burglariously did break into and enter 
 there being then and there a human being in said dwell- 
 ing house, with intent to commit some crime therein, 
 to wit, the goods, chattels, and personal property of 
 the said John De Puyster Hepplewhite, then and there 
 being found, then and there feloniously and burglari- 
 ously to steal, take and carry away one silver tea service 
 of the value of five hundred dollars and one pair of 
 opera glasses of the value of five dollars each with 
 force and arms " 
 
 "But that silver tea service cost fifteen thousand 
 dollars and weighs eight hundred pounds!" whispered 
 Mr. Hepplewhite. 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 259 
 
 "Order in the court!" shouted Captain Phelan, 
 pounding upon the oak rail of the bar, and Mr. Hepple- 
 white subsided. 
 
 Yet as he sat there between his lawyers listening to 
 all the extraordinary things that the Grand Jury evi- 
 dently had believed Schmidt intended to do, the sus- 
 picion began gradually to steal over him that some- 
 thing was not entirely right somewhere. Why, it was 
 ridiculous to charge the man with trying to carry oflf 
 a silver service weighing nearly half a ton when he 
 simply had gone to bed and fallen asleep. Still, per- 
 haps that was the law. 
 
 However, when the assistant district attorney opened 
 the People's case to the jury Mr. Hepplewhite began 
 to feel much more at ease. Indeed O'Brien made it 
 very plain that the defendant had been guilty of a 
 very grievous — ^he pronounced it "gree-vious" — offense 
 in forcing his way into another man's private house. 
 It might or might not be burglary — that would de- 
 pend upon the testimony — ^but in any event it was a 
 criminal, illegal entry and he should ask for a convic- 
 tion. A man's house was his castle and — ^to quote 
 from that most famous of orators and statesmen — 
 Edmund Burke — "the wind might enter, the rain might 
 enter, but the King of England might not enter!" 
 Thus Schmidt could not enter the house of Hepple- 
 white without making himself amenable to the law. 
 
 Hepplewhite was filled with admiration for Mr. 
 O'Brien, and his drooping spirits reared their wilted 
 heads as the prosecutor called Bibby to the stand and 
 
26o TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 elicited from him the salient features of the case. 
 The jury was vastly interested in the butler personally, 
 as well as his account rendered in the choicest cock- 
 ney of how he had discovered Schmidt in his master's 
 bed. O'Brien bowed to Mr. Tutt and told him that he 
 might cross-examine. 
 
 And then it was that Mr. Hepplewhite discovered 
 why he had been haunted by that mysterious feeling 
 of guilt; for by some occult and subtle method of sug- 
 gestion on the part of Mr. Tutt, the case, instead of 
 being a trial of Schmidt, resolved itself intO' an attack 
 upon Mr. Hepplewhite and his retainers apd upon the 
 corrupt minions of the law who had violated every 
 principle of justice, decency and morality in order to 
 accomplish the unscrupulous purposes of a merciless 
 aristocrat — meaning him. With biting sarcasm, Mr. 
 Tutt forced from the writhing Bibby the admission 
 that the prisoner was sound asleep in the pink silk 
 fastnesses of the Bouguereau Room when he was dis- 
 covered, that he made no attempt to escape, that he 
 did not assault anybody and that he had appeared 
 comatose from exhaustion ; that there was no sign of 
 a break anywhere, and that the pair of opera glasses 
 "worth five dollars apiece" — ^Tutt invited the court's 
 attention to this ingenuous phraseology of Mr. Caput 
 Magnus, as a literary curiosity — ^were a figment of the 
 imagination. 
 
 In a word Mr. Tutt rolled Bibby up and threw him 
 away, while his master shuddered at the open disclo- 
 sure of his trusted major-domo's vulgarity, mendaqty 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 261 
 
 and general lack of sportsmanship. Somehow all at 
 once the case began to break up and go all to pot. The 
 jury got laughing at Bibby, the footmen and the cops 
 as Mr. Tutt painted for their edification the scene fol- 
 lowing the arrival of Mrs. Witherspoon, when Schmidt 
 was discovered asleep, as Mr. Tutt put it, like Goldi- 
 locks in the Little, Small, Wee Bear's bed. 
 
 Stocking was the next witness, and he fared no bet- 
 ter than had Bibby. O'Brien, catching the judge's 
 eye, made a wry face and imperceptibly lowered his 
 left lid — on the side away from the jury, thus officially 
 indicating that, of course, the case was a lemon but 
 that there was nothing that could be done except to try 
 it out to the bitter end. 
 
 Then he rose and called out unexpectedly: "Mr. 
 John De Puyster Hepplewhite — ^take the stand!" 
 
 It was entirely unexpected. No one had suggested 
 that he would be called for the prosecution. Possibly 
 O'Brien was actuated by a slight touch of malice; pos- 
 sibly he wanted to be able, if the case was lost, to accuse 
 Hepplewhite of losing it on his own testimony. But 
 at any rate he certainly had no anticipation of what 
 the ultimate consequence of his act would be. 
 
 Mr. Hepplewhite suddenly felt as though his entire 
 intestinal mechanism had been removed. But he had 
 no time to take counsel of his fears. Everybody in the 
 courtroom turned with one accord and looked at him. 
 He rose, feeling as one who dreams that he is naked 
 in the midst of a multitude. He shrank back hesitating, 
 but hostile hands reached out and pushed him forward. 
 
262 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Cringing, he slunk to the witness chair, and for the 
 first time faced the sardonic eyes of the terrible Tutt, 
 his adversary, who looked scornfully from Hepple- 
 white to the jury and then from the jury back to Hep- 
 plewhite as if to say: "Look at him! Call you this a 
 man?" 
 
 "You are the Mr. Hepplewhite who has been re- 
 ferred to in the testimony as the owner of the house in 
 which the defendant was found ?" inquired O'Brien. 
 
 "Yes — ^yes," answered Mr. Heppelwhite deprecat- 
 ingly, 
 
 "The first witness — Bibby — is in your employ?" 
 
 "Yes— yes." 
 
 "Did you have a silver tea set of the value of — er — 
 at least five hundred dollars in the house?" 
 
 "It was worth fifteen thousand," .corrected Mr. Hep- 
 plewhite. 
 
 "Oh ! Now, have you been served by the defendant's 
 attorneys with a summons and complaint in an action 
 for false arrest in which damages are claimed in the 
 sum of one hundred thousand dollars?" 
 
 "I object!" shouted Mr. Tutt. "It is wholly irrele- 
 vant." 
 
 "I think it shows the importance of the result of this 
 trial to the witness," argued O'Brien perfunctorily. "It 
 shows this case isn't any joke — even if some people 
 seem to think it is." 
 
 "Objection sustained," ruled the court. "The ques- 
 tion is irrelevant. The jury is supposed to know that 
 every case is important to those concerned — to the 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 263 
 
 defendant as well as to those Who charge him with 
 crime." 
 
 O'Brien bowed. 
 
 "That's all. You may examine, Mr. Tutt." 
 
 The old lawyer slowly unfolded his tall frame and 
 gazed quizzically down upon the shivering Hepple- 
 white. 
 
 "You have been sued by my client for one hvm- 
 dred thousand dollars, haven't you?" he demanded. 
 
 "Object!" shot out O'Brien. 
 
 "Overruled," snapped the court. "It is a proper 
 question for cross-examination. It may show motive." 
 
 Mr. Hepplewhite sat helplessly until the shooting 
 was over. 
 
 "Answer the question !" suddenly shouted Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "But! thought " he began. 
 
 "Don't think !" retorted the court sarcastically. "The 
 time to think has gone by. Answer !" 
 
 "I don't know what the question is," stammered 
 Mr. Hepplewhite, thoroughly frightened. 
 
 "Lord! Lord!" groaned O'Brien in plain hearing 
 of the jury. 
 
 Mr. Tutt sighed sympathetically in mock resigna- 
 tion. 
 
 "My dear sir," he began in icy tones, "when you had 
 my client arrested and charged with being a burglar, 
 had you made any personal inquiry as to the facts ?" 
 
 "I didn't have him arrested !" protested the witness. 
 
 "You deny that you ordered Bibby to charge the de- 
 fendant with burglary ?" roared Mr. Tutt. "Take care ! 
 
264 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 You know there is such a crime as perjury, do you 
 not?" 
 
 "No — I mean yes," stuttered Mr. Hepplewhite ab- 
 jectly. "That is, I've heard about perjury — ^but the 
 police attended to everything for me." 
 
 "Aha !" cried Mr. Tutt, snorting angrily like the war 
 horse depicted in the Book of Job. "The police 'at- 
 tended' to my client for you, did they ? What do you 
 mean — for you? Did you pay them for their little 
 attention ?" 
 
 "I always send them something on Christmas," said 
 Mr. Hepplewhite. "Just like the postmen." 
 
 Mr. Tutt looked significantly at the jury, while a 
 titter ran round the court room. 
 
 "Well," he continued with patient irony, "what we 
 wish to know is whether these friends of yours whom 
 you so kindly remember at Christmas dragged the 
 helpless man away from your house, threw him into 
 jail and charged him with burglary by your au- 
 thority?" 
 
 "I didn't think anything about it," asserted Hepple- 
 white. "Really I didn't. I assumed that they knew 
 what to do under such circumstances. I didn't suppose 
 they needed any authority from me." 
 
 Mr. Tutt eyed sideways the twelve jurymen. 
 
 "Trying to get out of it, are you? Attempting to 
 avoid responsibility? Are you thinking of what your 
 position will be if the defendant is acquitted — with an 
 action against you for one hundred thousand dollars?" 
 
 Ashamed, terrified, humiliated, Mr. Hepplewhite al- 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 265 
 
 most burst into tears. He had suffered a complete 
 moral disintegration — did not know where to turn for 
 help or sympathy. The whole world seemed to have 
 risen against him. He opened his mouth to reply, but 
 the words would not come. He looked appealingly at 
 the judge, but the judge coldly ignored him. The 
 whole room seemed crowded with a multitude of leer- 
 ing eyes. Why had God made him a rich man ? Why 
 was he compelled to suffer those terrible indignities? 
 He was not responsible for what had been done — ^why, 
 then, was he being treated so abominably? 
 
 "I don't want this man punished !" he suddenly broke 
 out in fervent expostulation. "I have nothing against 
 him. I don't believe he intended to do any wrong. 
 And I hope the jury will acquit him!" 
 
 "Oho !" whistled Mr. Tutt exultantly, while O'Brien 
 gazed at Hepplewhite in stupefaction. Was this a 
 man? 
 
 "So you admit that the charge against my dient is 
 without foundation?" insisted Mr. Tutt. 
 
 Hepplewhite nodded weakly. 
 
 "I don't know rightly what the charge is — ^but I 
 don't think be meant any harm," he faltered. 
 
 "Then why did you have the police put him under 
 arrest and hale him away?" challenged Mr, Tutt fero- 
 ciously. 
 
 "I supposed they had to — if he came into my house," 
 
 .said Mr. Hepplewhite. Then he added shamefacedly: 
 
 "I know it sounds silly — but frankly I did, not know 
 
 that I had anything to say in the matter. If your client 
 
266 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 has been injured by my fault or mistake I will gladly 
 reimburse him as handsomely as you wish." 
 
 O'Brien gasped. Then he made a funnel of his 
 hands and whispered toward the bench : "Take it away, 
 for heaven's sake!" 
 
 "That is all !" remarked Mr. Tutt with deep sarcasm, 
 making an elaborate bow in the direction of Mr. Hep- 
 plewhite. "Thank you for your excellent intentions!" 
 
 A snicker followed Mr. Hepplewhite as he dragged 
 himself back to his seat among the spectators. 
 
 He felt as though he had passed through a clothes 
 wringer. Dimly he heard Mr. Tutt addressing the 
 court. 
 
 "And I move, Your Honoi-," the lawyer was saying, 
 "that you take the counts for burglary in the first, sec- 
 ond and third degrees away from the j.ury on the 
 ground that there has been a complete failure of proof 
 that my client broke into the house of this man Hep- 
 plewhite either by night or by day, or that he assaulted 
 anybody or stole anything there, or ever intended to." 
 
 "Motion granted," agreed the judge. "I quite agree 
 with you, Mr. Tutt. There is no evidence here of any 
 breaking. In fact, the inferences are all the other 
 way." 
 
 "I further move that you take from the considera- 
 tion of the jury the remaining count of illegally enter- 
 ing the house with intent to commit a crime and direct 
 the jury to acquit the defendant for lack of evidence," 
 continued Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "But what was your client doing in the house ?" in- 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 267 
 
 quired the judge. "He had no particular business in 
 it, had he?" 
 
 "That does not make his presence a crime, Your 
 Honor," retorted the lawyer. "A man is not guilty of 
 a felony who falls asleep on my haycock. Why should 
 he be if he falls asleep in my bed?" 
 
 The judge smiled. 
 
 "We have no illegal entry statute with respect to 
 fields or meadows, Mr. Tutt," he remarked good-na- 
 turedly. "No, I shall be obliged to let the jury decide 
 whether this defendant went into that house for an 
 honest or dishonest purpose. It is clearly a proper 
 question for them to pass upon. Proceed with your 
 case." 
 
 Now when, as in the case of the Hepplewhite Tramp, 
 the chief witness for the prosecution throws up his 
 hands and offers to repay the defendant for the wrong 
 he has done him, naturally it is all over but the shout- 
 ing. 
 
 "There is no need for me to call the defendant," Mr. 
 Tutt told the court, "in view of the admissions made 
 by the last witness. I am ready to proceed with the 
 summing up." 
 
 "As you deem wise," answered the judge. "Proceed 
 then." 
 
 Through a blur of sight and sound Mr. Hepple- 
 white dimly heard Mr. Tutt addressing the jury and 
 saw them lean forward to catch his every word. 
 
 Beside him Mr. Edgerton was saying protestinglyj 
 
268 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "May I ask why you made those fool statements on 
 the witness stand?" 
 
 "Because I didn't want an innocent man convicted," 
 returned Mr. Hepplewhite tartly. 
 
 "Well, you'll get your wish!" sniffed his lawyer. 
 "And you'll get soaked for about twenty thousand 
 dollars for false arrest !" 
 
 "I don't care," retorted the client. "And what's 
 more I hope Mr. Tutt gets a substantial fee out of it. 
 He strikes me as a lawyer who knows his business!" 
 
 The oldest and fattest court officers, men so old and 
 fat that they remembered the trial of Boss Tweed and 
 the days when Delancey NicoU was the White Hope of 
 the Brownstone Court House — declared Mr. Tutt's 
 summation was the greatest that ever they heard. For 
 the shrewd old lawyer had an artist's hand with which 
 he played upon the keyboard of the jury and knew just 
 when to pull out the stops of the vox humana of pathos 
 and the grand diapason of indignation and defiance. 
 So he began by tickling their sense of humor with an 
 ironic description of afternoon tea at Mr. Hepple- 
 white's, with Bibby and Stocking as chief actors, until 
 all twelve shook with suppressed laughter and the 
 judge was forced to hide his face behind the Law Jour- 
 nal; ridiculed the idea of a criminal who wanted to 
 commit a crime calmly going to sleep in a pink silk bed 
 in broad daylight ; and then brought tears to their eyes 
 as he pictured the wretched homeless tramp, sick, foot- 
 sore and starving, who, drawn by the need of food and 
 warmth to this silk nest of luxury, was clubbed, ar- 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 269 
 
 rested and jailed simply because he had violated the 
 supposed sanctity of a rich man's home. 
 
 The jury watched him as intently as a dog watches 
 a piece of meat held over its nose. They smiled with 
 him, they wept with him, they glared at Mr. Hepple- 
 white and they gazed in a friendly way at Schmidt, 
 whom Mr. Tutt had bailed out just before the trial. 
 The very stars in their courses seemed warring for 
 Tutt & Tutt. In the words of Phelan : "There was 
 nothing to it!" 
 
 "Thank God," concluded Mr. Tutt eloquently, "that 
 in this land of liberty in which we are privileged to 
 dwell no man can be convicted of a crime except by a 
 jury of his peers — a right sacred under our Constitu- 
 tion and inherited from Magna Charta, that founda- 
 tion stone of English liberty, in which the barons 
 forced King John to declare that 'No freeman shall 
 be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or 
 exiled, or in any way harmed . . . save by the lawful 
 judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.' 
 
 "Had I the time I would demonstrate to you the 
 arbitrary character of our laws and the inequality 
 with which they are administered. 
 
 "But in this case the chief witness has already ad- 
 mitted the innocence of the defendant. There is noth- 
 ing more to be said. The prosecution has cried 
 'Peccavi!' I leave my client in your hands." 
 
 He resumed his seat contentedly and wiped his fore- 
 head with his silk handkerchief. The judge looked 
 down at O'Brien with raised eyebrows. 
 
270 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "I will leave the case to the jury on Your Honor's 
 charge," remarked the latter carelessly. 
 
 "Gentlemen of the jury," began the judge, "the de- 
 fendant is accused of entering the house of Mr. Hep- 
 plewhite with the intent to commit a crime therein " 
 
 Mr. Hepplewhite sat, his head upon his breast, for 
 what seemed to him several hours. He had but one 
 thought — to escape. His ordeal had been far worse 
 than he had anticipated. But he had made a discov- 
 ery. He had suddenly realized that one cannot avoid 
 one's duties to one's fellows by leaving one's affairs to 
 others — not even to the police. He perceived that he 
 had lived with his head stuck in the sand. He had 
 tried to escape from his responsibilities as a citizen 
 by hiding behind the thick walls of his stone mansion 
 on Fifth Avenue. He made up his mind that he would 
 do differently if he ever had the chance. Meanwhile, 
 was not the jury ever going to set the poor man free? 
 
 They had indeed remained out a surprisingly long 
 time in order merely to reach a verdict which was a 
 mere formality. Ah ! There they were ! Mr. Hepple- 
 white watched with palpitating heart while they strag- 
 gled slowly in. The clerk made the ordinary perfunc- 
 tory inquiry as to what their verdict was. Mr. Hep- 
 plewhite did not hear what the foreman said in reply, 
 but he saw both the Tutts and O'Brien start from their 
 seats and heard a loud murmur rise throughout the 
 court room. 
 
 "What's that!" cried the clerk in astonished tones. 
 "What did you say, Mister Foreman?" 
 
THE HEPPLEWHITE TRAMP 271 
 
 "I said that we find the defendant guilty," replied 
 the foreman calmly. 
 
 Mr. Tutt stared incredulously at the twelve traitors 
 who had betrayed him. 
 
 "Never mind, Mr. Tutt," whispered Number Six 
 confidentially. "You did the best you could. Your 
 argument was fine — grand — but nobody could ever 
 make us believe that your client went into that house 
 for any purpose except to steal whatever he could lay 
 his hands on. Besides, it wasn't Mr. Hepplewhite's 
 fault. He means well. And anyhow a nut like that 
 has got to be protected against himself." 
 
 He might have enlightened Mr. Tutt further upon 
 the psychology of the situation had not the judge at 
 that moment ordered the prisoner arraigned at the bar. 
 
 "Have you ever been convicted before?" asked His 
 Honor sharply. 
 
 "Sure," replied the Hepplewhite Tramp carelessly. 
 "I've done three or four bits. I'm a burglar. But you 
 can't give me more than a year for illegal entry." 
 
 "That is quite true," admitted His Honor stiffly. 
 "And it isn't half enough !" He hesitated. "Perhaps 
 under the circumstances you'll tell us what you were 
 doing in Mr. Hepplewhite's bed?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't mind," returned the defendant with the 
 superior air of one who has put something over. 
 "When I heard the guy in the knee breeches coming up 
 the stairs I just dove for the slats and played I was 
 asleep." 
 
272 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Leaving the courthouse Mr. Tutt encountered Bon- 
 nie Doon. 
 
 "Young man," he remarked severely, "you assured 
 me that fellow was only a harmless tramp!" 
 
 "Well," answered Bonnie, "that's what he said." 
 
 "He says now he's a burglar," retorted Mr. Tutt 
 wrathfully. "I don't believe he knows what he is. 
 Did you ever hear of such an outrageous verdict? 
 With not a scrap of eviden,ce to support it ?" 
 
 Bonnie lit a cigarette doubtfully. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," he muttered. "The jury seems 
 to have sized him up rather better than we did." 
 
 "Jury !" growled Mr. Tutt, rolling his eyes heaven- 
 ward. " 'Sweet land of liberty!' " 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 
 
 "Ethics : The doctrine of man's duty in respect to himself and 
 the rights of others." — Century Dictionary. 
 
 "I don't say that all these people couldn't be squared; but 
 it is right to tell you that I shouldn't be sufficiently degraded in 
 my own estimation unless I was insulted with a very consider- 
 able bribe." — Pooh-Bah. 
 
 "I've been all over those securities," Miss Wiggin 
 informed Mr. Tutt as he entered the office one morn- 
 ing, "and not a single one of them is listed on the 
 Stock Exchange." 
 
 "What securities are those?" asked her employer, 
 hanging his tall hat on the antiquated mahogany coat 
 tree in the corner opposite the screen that ambushed 
 the washing apparatus. "I don't remember any se- 
 curities," he remarked as he applied a match to the 
 off end of a particularly green and vicious-looking 
 stogy. 
 
 "Why, of course you do, Mr. Tutt!" insisted Miss 
 Wiggin. "Don't you remember those great piles of 
 bonds and stocks that Doctor Barrows left here with 
 you to keep for him ?" 
 
 "Oh, those!" Mr. Tutt smiled inscrutably. "Mr. 
 Barrows is not a physician," he corrected her, run- 
 ning his eye over the General Sessions calendar. "He's 
 only a 'doc' — ^that is to say, one who doctors. You 
 know you can doctor a lot of things besides the human 
 
 273 
 
274 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 anatomy. No, I guess they're not listed on the Stock 
 Exchange or anywhere else." 
 
 "Well, here's a schedule I made of them — Miss 
 Sondheim typed it — ^and their total face value is sev- 
 enteen million eight hundred thousand dollars. I tried 
 to find out all I could, but none of the firms on Wall 
 Street had ever heard of any of them — excepting of 
 one that was traded in on the curb up to within a few 
 weeks. There's Great Lakes and Canadian Southern 
 Railway Company," she went on, "Chicago Water 
 Front and Terminal Company, Great Geyser Texan 
 Petroleum and Llano Estacado Land Company — doz- 
 ens and dozens of them, and not one has an office or, 
 so far as I can find out, any tangible existence — but 
 the one I spoke of." 
 
 "Which is this great exception?" queried Mr. Tutt 
 absently as he searched through the Lcsm Journal for 
 the case he was going to try that afternoon. "You 
 said one of them had been dealt in on the curb? You 
 astonish me !" 
 
 "It's got a funny name," she answered. "It almost 
 sounds as if they meant it for a joke — Horse's Neck 
 Extension." 
 
 "I guess they meant it for a joke all right — on the 
 public," chuckled her employer. "How many shares 
 are there?" 
 
 "A hundred thousand," she answered. 
 
 "Jumping Jehoshaphat !" ejaculated Mr. Tutt. 
 "How on earth did old Doc manage to get hold of 
 them?" 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 27s 
 
 "It sold for only ten cents a share!" replied Miss 
 Wiggin. "That would mean ten thousand dol- 
 lars " 
 
 "If Doc paid for it," supplemented Mr. Tutt. 
 "Which he probably didn't. What's it selHng for 
 now ?" 
 
 "It isn't selling at all." 
 
 Mr. Tutt pressed the button that summoned Willie. 
 
 "When you haven't anything better to do," he said 
 to her, "why don't you go round and see what has be- 
 come of — of — Horse's Neck Extension?" 
 
 "I will," assented Miss Wiggin. "It makes me feel 
 rich just to talk about such things. I just love it." 
 
 "Many a slick crook has taken advantage of just 
 that kind of feeling," mused Mr. Tutt. "There are 
 two things that women — ^particularly trained nurses^ 
 seem to like better than anything else in the world — 
 babies and stock certificates. 
 
 Then upon the arrival of the recalcitrant William he 
 gathered up his papers and took down his hat from the 
 tree. 
 
 "I wish you'd let me get your hat ironed, Mr. Tutt," 
 remarked Miss Wiggin. "It would cost you only fifty 
 cents." 
 
 "That's all you know about it, my dear," he an- 
 swered. "More likely it would cost me a hundred 
 thousand dollars." 
 
 Mr. Tobias Greenbaum, of Scherer, Hunn, Green- 
 baum & Beck, carefully placed his cigar where it would 
 
276 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 not char his Italian Renaissance desk and smoothed out 
 the list which Mr. Elderberry, the secretary of The 
 Horse's Neck Extension Copper Mining Company, 
 handed to him. The list was typed on thin sheets of 
 foolscap and contained the names of stockholders, but 
 as it had lain rolled up in the bottom of Mr. Elder- 
 berry's desk for five years without being disturbed it 
 was inclined to resist the gentle pressure of Mr. Green- 
 baum's fingers. 
 
 Mr. Greenbaum glanced sharply round the plate- 
 glass lake that separated him from the other directors 
 of Horse's Neck, rather as if he had detected his as- 
 sociates in a crime. 
 
 "Isaacs says," he announced in an arrogant, almost 
 insulting tone, though below the surface he was an 
 entirely genial person, "that the new vein in the Am~ 
 phalula runs into the west drift of Horse's Neck al- 
 most to where we quit work in Number Nine five years 
 ago." 
 
 "If it does it will make it a bonanza property," em- 
 phatically declared his partner, Mr. Scherer, a doli- 
 chocephalous person with very black hair and thin 
 bluish cheeks. "It's a pity we didn't buy it all in at 
 ten cents a share." 
 
 "We did !" retorted Greenbaum. "All that could be 
 shaken out. We've got all the stock that hasn't gravi- 
 tated to the cemeteries." 
 
 "Even if the Amphalula vein doesn't run into it it 
 will come near enough to make Horse's Neck worth 
 dollars per share. It's a heads-I-wiii-tails-you-lose 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 277 
 
 proposition," commented Mr. Hunn dryly. "Who con- 
 trols Amphalula ?" 
 
 "We do," snapped Greenbaum. 
 
 "Then it's a cinch," returned Hunn mildly. "Shake 
 out the sleepers, reorganize, and sell or hold as seems 
 most advisable later on." 
 
 Mr. Elderberry cleared his throat tentatively. 
 
 "If you gentlemen will pardon me — I have been 
 considering this matter for some little time," he haz- 
 arded. Mr. Elderberry was not only the professional 
 salaried secretary of Horse's Neck but was also treas- 
 urer of the Amphalula, and general factotum, repre-v 
 sentative and interlocking director for Scherer, Hunn, 
 Greenbaum & Beck in their various mining enter- 
 prises, combining in his person almost as many offices 
 as Pooh-Bah in "The Mikado." Though he could not 
 have claimed to serve as "First Lord of the Treasury, 
 Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High 
 Admiral, Master of the Buck Hounds, Groom of the 
 Back Stairs, Archbishop of Titipu and Lord Mayor, 
 both acting and elect, all rolled into one," he could with 
 entire modesty have admitted the soft impeachment of 
 being simultaneously treasurer of Amphalula, vice 
 president of Hooligan Gulch and Red Water, secre- 
 tary of Horse's Neck, Holy Jo, Gargoyle Extension, 
 Cowhide Number Five, Consolidated Bimetallic, Ne- 
 vada Mastodon, Leaping Frog, Orelady Mine, Why 
 Marry and Sol's Cliff Buttress, and president of Blimp 
 Consolidated. 
 
 All these various properties were either owned or 
 
278 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 controlled by Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck and 
 had been acquired with the use of the same original 
 capital in various entirely legal ways, which at the 
 present moment are irrelevant. The firm was a strictly 
 honorable business house, from both their own point 
 of view and that of the Street. Everything they did 
 was with and by the advice of counsel. Yet not one 
 of these active-minded gentlemen, including Mr. Green- 
 baum, the dolichocephalous Scherer and the acephalous 
 Hunn, had ever done a stroke of productive work or 
 contributed anything toward the common weal. In 
 fact, distress to somebody in some form, and usually 
 to a large number of persons, inevitably followed what- 
 ever deal they undertook, since their business was 
 speculating in mining properties and unloading the bad 
 ones upon an unsuspecting public which Scherer, Hunn, 
 Greenbaum & Beck had permitted to deceive itself. 
 
 Thus, when Greenbaum called upon Mr. Elderberry 
 for advice, it savored strongly of Koko's consulting 
 Pooh-Bah and was sometimes almost as confusing, for 
 just as Pooh-Bah on these occasions was wont to reply 
 "Certainly. In which of my capacities? As First 
 Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chamberlain, Attorney^; 
 General, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Privy Purse or 
 Private Secretary?" so the financial and corporate 
 Elderberry might equally well ask: "Exactly. But 
 are you seeking my advice as secretary of Horse's 
 Neck, of Holy Jo, of Cowhide Number Five, or as 
 vice-president of Hooligan Gulch and Red Water, 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 279 
 
 treasurer of Amphalula or president of Blimp Consoli- 
 dated?" 
 
 Just now it was, of course, obvious that he was ad- 
 dressing the company in his capacity of secretary of 
 Horse's Neck. 
 
 "It goes without saying, gentlemen, that this prop- 
 erty is pretty nearly down and out. You will recall 
 that most of the insiders sold out on the tail of the 
 Goldfield Boom and waited for the market to sag 
 until we could buy in again. The mines are full of 
 water, work was abandoned over four years ago, and 
 the property is practically defunct. The original capi- 
 talization was ten million shares at one dollar a share. 
 We own or control at least four million shares, for 
 which we paid ten to fifteen cents, while we had sold 
 our original holdings for one dollar sixty to one dollar 
 ninety-five a share. While Horse's Neck represents a 
 handsome profit — in my opinion" — he cleared his 
 throat again as if deprecating the vulgarity of his 
 phrase — "it is good for another whirl." 
 
 *'You say it's full of water?" inquired Hunn. 
 
 "It will cost about fifty thousand dollars to pump 
 out the mines and a hundred thousand to repair the 
 machinery. Then there's quite an indebtedness — about 
 seventy-five thousand; and tax liens — another fifty. 
 Half a million dollars would put Horse's Neck on the 
 map, and if the Amphalula vein crosses the property 
 it will be worth ten millions. If it doesn't, the chance 
 that it is going to will make a market for the stock." 
 
 Mr. Elderberry swept with a bland inquiring eye the 
 
28o TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 shore of the glassy sea about which his associates were 
 gathered. 
 
 "I've been over the ground," announced Greenbaum, 
 "and it's a good gamble. We want Horse's Neck for 
 ourselves — at any rate until we are confident that it's 
 a real lemon. Half a million will do it. I'll personally 
 put up a hundred thousand." 
 
 "How are you going to get rid of the fifty thousand 
 other stockholders?" asked Mr. Beck dubiously. "We 
 don't want them trailing along with us." 
 
 "'I propose," answered Mr. Elderberry brightly, in 
 his capacity as chief conspirator for Scherer, Hunn 
 et al., "that we organize a new corporation to be called 
 'Lallapaloosa Limited' and capitalize it at a million 
 dollars — one million shares at a dollar a share. Then 
 we will execute a contract betweeij Horse's iNeck and 
 Lallapaloosa by the terras of which the old bankrupt 
 corporation will sell to the new ''corporation all its 
 assets for one hundred and twenty-five thousand dol- 
 lars. We underwrite the stock of Lallapaloosa at 
 fifty cents a share, thus supplying the new corporation 
 with the funds with which to purchase the properties 
 of the old. In a word we shall get Horse's Neck for a 
 hundred and twenty-five thousand and have three hun- 
 dred and seventy-five thousand left out of what we 
 subscribe to underwrite the stock to put it on its feet." 
 
 "That's all right," debated Hunn. "But how about 
 the other stockholders in Horse's Neck that Beck re- 
 ferred to? Where do they come in?" 
 
 "I've thought of that," returned Elderberry. "Of 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 281 
 
 course you can't just squeeze 'em out entirely. That 
 wouldn't be legal. They must be given the chance to 
 subscribe at par to the stock of the new corporation on 
 the basis of one share in the new for every ten they 
 hold in the old ; or, as Horse's Neck is a Delaware cor- 
 poration, to have their old stock appraised under the 
 laws of Delaware. In point of fact, they've all written 
 oif their holdings in Horse's Neck as a total loss years 
 ago and you couldn't drag 'em into putting in any new 
 money. They'll simply let it go — forfeit their stock 
 in Horse's Neck and be wiped out because they were 
 not willing to go in and reorganize the property with 
 us." 
 
 "They would if they knew about Amphalula," re- 
 marked Beck. 
 
 "Well, they don't !" snapped Greenbaum, "and we're 
 under no obligation to tell 'em. They can infer what 
 they like from the fact that Horse's Neck has been 
 selling for ten cents a share for the last three years." 
 
 "Is that right, Chippingham ?" inquired Beck of the 
 attorney who was in attendance. "I mean — is it 
 legal?" 
 
 "Perfectly legal," replied Mr. Chippingham conclu- 
 sively. "A corporation has a perfect right to dispose 
 of its entire assets for a proper consideration, and if 
 any minority stockholder feels aggrieved he can take 
 the matter to the Delaware courts and get his equity 
 assessed. Besides, everybody is treated alike — all the 
 stockholders in Horse's Neck can subscribe pro rata 
 for Lallapaloosa." 
 
282 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Only they won't," grinned Scherer. 
 
 "And so, as they are wiped out, the new corporation 
 — that is us — in fact gets their equity, just as much as 
 if they had deeded it to us." 
 
 "That is, we get for nothing about one-half the value 
 of the property," agreed Elderberry. "Now, I've been 
 over the list and I don't think you'll hear a peep from 
 any of them." 
 
 "He's got 'em on the list — ^he's got 'em on the list ; 
 And they'll none of 'em be missed — ^they'll none of 'em be 
 missed !" 
 
 hummed Mr. Beck. "It looks good to me! I'll take a 
 hundred thousand." 
 
 "Mr. Chippingham has the papers drawn already," 
 continued Elderberry. "Of course you've got to give 
 the old stockholders notice, but we can rush the thing 
 through and before anybody wakes up the thing will 
 be done. Then they can holler all they want." 
 
 "Well, I'll come in," announced Hunn complacently. 
 
 "So will I," echoed Scherer. "And the firm can 
 underwrite the last hundred thousand, and that will 
 clean it up." 
 
 "Is it all right for us to underwf ite the stock our- 
 selves at half price?" inquired Mr. Beck. "I mean — 
 is it legal?" 
 
 "Sure!" reiterated Mr. Chippingham. "Somebody's 
 got to underwrite it ; why not us ?" 
 
 "Move we adjourn," said Mr. Greenbaum. "Elder- 
 berry — the usual." 
 
 Mr. Elderberry removed from his change pocket five 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 283 
 
 glittering gold pieces and slid one across the glass sheet 
 to each director. 
 
 "Second motion. Carried! All up — seventh in- 
 ning!" smiled Mr. Scherer; and the directors, pocket- 
 ing their gold pieces, arose. 
 
 If, as it has been defined, ethics consists of a "system 
 of principles and rules concerning moral obligations 
 and regard for the rights of others," it may be inter- 
 esting to speculate as to whether or not these gentlemen 
 had any or not, and, if so, what it may have been. But 
 in considering this somewhat nice question it should 
 be borne in mind that Messrs. Scherer, Hunn, Green- 
 baum & Beck were bankers of standing, and were ad- 
 vised by a firm of attorneys of the highest reputation. 
 On. its face, and as it was about to be represented to 
 the stockholders of Horse's Neck, the proposition ap- 
 peared fair enough. 
 
 The circular, shortly after sent out to all the names 
 upon the list, stated succinctly that financial and labor 
 conditions had been such that it had been found im- 
 possible to operate the mine profitably for several 
 years, that it had depreciated greatly in value owing 
 to the water which had accumulated in its lower levels, 
 that it had exhausted its surplus, that a heavy indebted- 
 ness had accumulated, that the corporation's outstand- 
 ing notes had been protested and that the property 
 would be sold under foreclosure unless money was im- 
 mediately raised to pay them, the interest due and 
 taxes; that half a million dollars was needed to put the 
 property in operation and that there was no way to 
 
284 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 secure it, as nobody was willing to loan money to a 
 bankrupt mining concern. That under these circum- 
 stances no practical method had been proposed except 
 to organize a new corporation capitalized at one mil- 
 lion instead of ten, to the stock of which each share- 
 holder in Horse's Neck might subscribe in proportion 
 to his holdings, at par, and to which the assets of the 
 old corporation should be transferred practically for 
 its debts. That this, in a word, was the only way to 
 save the situation and possibly make a go of a bad 
 business, and that it was a gamble in which the old 
 stockholders had a right, up to a certain date, to par- 
 ticipate if they saw fit. Those that did not would 
 find their stock in Horse's Neck entirely valueless as 
 it would have no assets left which had not been trans- 
 ferred to Lallapaloosa. Stockholders who were dis- 
 satisfied could protest against the enabling resolution 
 to be offered at the annual meeting of the stockholders 
 of Horse's Neck to be held the following week at Wil- 
 mington, Delaware, and could avail themselves of the 
 right to have their equity assessed under the laws of 
 Delaware, but as the liabilities practically equaled the 
 present value of the property that equity would natu- 
 rally be highly problematical. 
 
 Now, as a matter of morals or of law the only thing 
 that made the proposed reorganization unethical or 
 inequitable was the single trifling fact that those re- 
 sponsible for it were the only ones who knew of the 
 existence and proximity of the Amphalula vein. When 
 a mining company, a railroad, an oil well or any other 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 285 
 
 enterprise is down and out it is only fair that the ma- 
 jority stockholders, who are obliged to protect their 
 investment, should have the right to call upon the rest 
 to come forward and do their share or else drop out. 
 A minority stockholder cannot appeal to any canon of 
 fair play whereby he should be entitled to sit back and 
 let the majority take all the risks and then claim his 
 share of the profits. 
 
 The imponderable element of injustice in the situa- 
 tion consisted in the suppression of a fact which the 
 directors concealed but concerning which, however, 
 they made no representation, false or otherwise. They 
 were going to risk half a million dollars of their own 
 money and they wanted the whole gamble for them- 
 selves. They sincerely felt that nobody else was en- 
 titled to take that risk with them. Once they had 
 floated Horse's Neck they had come to look upon it 
 as their own private affair. The minority had no- 
 rights which they, the majority, were bound to respect. 
 The minority were nothing but a lot of piking gam- 
 blers, anyway, who bought or sold for a rise or fall of 
 a few cents. They knew nothing of the property and 
 cared less for its real value. They were merely traders 
 and if they lost they forgot it or tried to. On the other 
 hand Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum &. Beck were promot- 
 ers, who contributed something to the economic ad- 
 vancement of the nation. 
 
 "Regarding my hat, which you suggested this morn- 
 ing should be pressed at a cost of fifty cents," remarked 
 
286 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Mr. Tutt to Miss Wiggin when he returned to the 
 office upon the adjournment of court in the afternoon 
 and replaced that ancient object in its accustomed rest- 
 ing-place — "regarding that precious hat of mine" — 
 he eyed it afifectionately — "I can only say that I would 
 as soon send myself to a dry-cleaning establishment 
 as to permit its profanation by the iron of a haber- 
 dasher." 
 
 Miss Wiggin laughed lightly. 
 
 "That doesn't explain your cryptic statement that 
 it would probably cost you a hundred thousand dol- 
 lars," she replied. "Still " 
 
 Mr. Tutt turned suddenly upon his heel and held 
 her with an upraised hand, the bony wrist of^whidi 
 was encircled, after an intervening space of some five 
 inches, by a frayed cuff confined with a black onyx but- 
 ton the size of a quarter. 
 
 "Behold," he cried in the deep resonant voice that 
 he used in addressing juries at the climax of a perora- 
 tion, "the integuments of my personality — ^the ancient 
 habiliments of an honorable profession — the panoply 
 of the legal warrior. Here, my corslet" — ^he touched 
 his dingy waistcoat with his left hand; "my greaves" 
 — he brushed the baggy legs of his pantaloons; "my 
 halberd" — he raised his old mahogany cane with its 
 knot of yellow ivory; "my casque" — he indicated his 
 ruffled stovepipe. "Arrayed in these I am Mr. Eph- 
 raim Tutt, attorney and counselor at law — the senior 
 partner in Tutt & Tutt — a respected member of the 
 bar duly accredited and authorized to practise before 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 287 
 
 the Supreme Court of the State of New York, the 
 Court of Appeals, the District Court of .the United 
 States, the Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme 
 
 Court of the United States, the Court of Claims " 
 
 " the Police Court and the Coroner's Court," 
 
 concluded Miss Wiggin, making him a mock curtsy. 
 
 "Without these indicia of my profession and my in- 
 dividuality I should be like David without his sling or 
 Samson without his hair. I should be merely Tutt, a 
 criminal lawyer — one of a multitude — regarded per- 
 haps as a shyster. But in these robes of my high office 
 I am a high priest of the law ; just as you, my dear girl, 
 are one of its many devoted and worthy priestesses. 
 Can you imagine me going to court in a bowler hat 
 or arguing to the jury in a cutaway coat or bobtail 
 business suit? Can you picture Ephraim Tutt with 
 his hair cut short or in an Ascot tie, any more than you 
 can envisage him in riding breeches or wearing lilacs? 
 No ! There is but one Mr. Tutt, and these are his only 
 garments. He who steals my hat may steal trash, but 
 without it I should be like a disembodied spirit unable 
 to return to my earthly dwelling-place. 
 
 "A paltry hundred thousand ? 
 
 "Nay, without my hat — my helmet! — I should be 
 valueless to myself and everybody else; so estimate 
 my worth and you can assay the value of my hat. 
 What am I worth in your opinion ?" 
 
 And then Miss Wiggin, having glanced cautiously 
 if quickly round, made a most astonishing declaration. 
 
 "Just about a million times more than anybody else 
 
288 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 in the whole world, you old dear!" she whispered; 
 and rising upon her toes she kissed his wrinkled cheek. 
 
 "Dear me! You really mustn't do that!" gasped 
 Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "Well," she retorted, "you can discharge me if you 
 like. But first sit down, light a cigar and let me tell 
 you something." 
 
 Mr. Tutt did as he was bid, chuckling. 
 
 "Well," said Miss Wiggin, "there is such a thing as 
 Horse's Neck Extension after all!" 
 
 "Um — you don't say?" he answered, struggling to 
 make his stogy draw. • 
 
 "And it has an office with about a hundred other cor- 
 porations of various kinds — most of them with names 
 that sound like the zoo — Yellow Wildcat, Jumping 
 Leapfrog, and that sort of thing. It seems Horse's 
 Neck is played out and they are going to reorganize 
 it " 
 
 "Who are?" demanded her employer, suddenly sit- 
 ting erect. 
 
 "Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck." 
 
 "The dickens they are!" he ejaculated. "That 
 bunch of pirates? Not if I know it !" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 , "Reorganize! Reorganize? Reorganization is my 
 middle name !" cried Mr. Tutt. "So Scherer, Hunn, 
 Greenbaum & Beck are going to reorganize something, 
 are they? Let 'em try! Not so long as I've got my 
 hat!" 
 
 "This is all very enigmatical to me," replied Miss 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 289 
 
 Wiggin. "But then, I'm only a woman. Aren't they 
 all right? Why shouldn't they reorganize a mine if 
 it's exhausted?" 
 
 "If it's exhausted why do they want to reorganize 
 it?" he demanded, climbing to his feet. "Let me tell 
 you something, Minerva! All my life I've been fight- 
 ing against tyranny — ^the tyranny of the law, the ty- 
 ranny of power, the tyranny of money." 
 
 He drew fiercely on his stogy, which being desiccated 
 flared like a Roman candle. 
 
 "You don't need to tell me what this plan of re- 
 organization is; because they wouldn't propose one 
 unless it was going to benefit them in some way, and 
 the only way it can be made to benefit them is at the 
 expense of the other stockholders. Quod erat demon- 
 strandum." 
 
 Mr. Tutt seemed to have become -distended some- 
 how and to have spread over the entire wall surface 
 of his office like the genie which the fisherman inno- 
 cently permitted to escape from the bottle. 
 
 "There isn't one reorganization scheme in a hun- 
 dred that isn't crooked somewhere." 
 
 "According to that, if a business is unsuccessful it 
 ought to be allowed to go to pot for fear that some- 
 body might make a profit in putting it on its feet," she 
 countered. "I think you're a violent, irascible, preju- 
 diced old man !" 
 
 "All the same," he retorted, "Show me a reorganiza- 
 tion scheme and I'll show you a flimflam! What's this 
 one? Bet you anything you like it's as crooked as a 
 
290 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 ram's horn. I don't have to hear about it. Don't want 
 to read the plan. But I'll bust it— higher than Hades. 
 See if 1 don't!" 
 
 He spat the remaining filaments of his stogy from 
 the window and fished out another. 
 
 "How do we come into it, anyhow ?" he demanded. 
 
 "Etoctor — I mean Mister Barrows," replied Miss 
 Wiggin. 
 
 "Oh, yes. Of course. Well, you send for him to 
 come down here and sign the papers." 
 
 "What papers?" 
 
 "The complaint and order to show cause." 
 
 "But there isn't any." 
 
 "There will be, all right, by the time he gets here." 
 
 Miss Wiggin looked first puzzled and then pained. 
 
 "I don't tmderstand," she said rather stifily. "Do 
 you mean that the firm of Tutt & Tutt is going to en- 
 gage in the enterprise of trying to break up a plan 
 of reorganization without knowing what it is? Won't 
 you lay us all open to the accusation of being strikers?" 
 
 Mr. Tutt's ordinarily brown complexion became 
 slightly tinged with purple. 
 
 "Let the court decide!" he cried hotly. "You say 
 Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck are proposing to 
 reorganize a mining company? You admit we hold 
 some of the stock? Well — as the natural-bom and 
 perennial champion of the outraged minority — -I'm 
 going to attack it, and bust it, and raise heck with it— 
 on general principles. I'm going to throw that damned 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 291 
 
 old hat of mine into the ring, my child, and play hell 
 with everything." 
 
 And with a cluck Mr. Tutt leaned over, produced a 
 dingy bottle wrapped in a coat of many colors and 
 poured himself out a glass of malt extract. 
 
 When Mr. Greenbaum was summoned to the tele- 
 phone and informed by Mr. Elderberry in disgruntled 
 tones that somebody had just served upon him an 
 order to show cause why the proposed reorganization 
 of Horse's Neck Extension should not be set aside and 
 enjoined, he not only became instantly annoyed but 
 highly excited. 
 
 "What!" he almost screamed. 
 
 "I'll read it to you, if you don't believe it!" said 
 Mr. Elderberry. 
 
 " 'United States District Court, Southern District 
 of New York, Edward V. Barrows, Complainant, 
 against Horse's Neck Extension Mining Company, De- 
 fendant. 
 
 " 'Upon the subpoena herein and the complaint duly 
 verified the nineteenth day of February, 191 9, and 
 the affidavit of Ephraim Tutt and ' " 
 
 "Who in hell is Tutt?" shouted Greenbaum, inter- 
 rupting. 
 
 "I don't know," retorted Elderberry; "or Barrows 
 either." 
 
 "Well, skip all the legal rot and get to the point," 
 directed Greenbaum. 
 
 " 'Ordered— ordered, that the defendant. Horse's 
 
292 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Neck Extension Mining Company, show cause at a 
 stated term to be held in and for ' " 
 
 "I said to cut the legal rot !" 
 
 "Um — um — 'why an injunction order should not 
 be issued herein pending the trial of this action and 
 enjoining the defendant from disposing of its assets 
 and for the appointment of a receiver of the assets 
 of the defendant corporation; and why the complain- 
 ant should not have such other, further and different 
 relief as may be equitable.' " 
 
 There was a long pause during which Mr. Elder- 
 berry was under a convincing delusion that he could 
 actually hear the thoughts that were rattUng round in 
 Mr. Greenbaum's brain. 
 
 "You there?" he inquired presently. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I'm here!" retorted Greenbaum. "This 
 is the devil of a note ! Have you spoken to Chipping- 
 ham?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What does he say?" 
 
 "He says it's awkward. They have got hold some- 
 where of one of our old circulars of 1914 in which 
 the property is described as worth about ten million 
 dollars — that was during the boom, you remember — 
 and they claim we are selling it to ourselves for less 
 than one million and that on its face it's a fraud on the 
 minority stockholders who can't afford to buy stock in 
 the new corporation — ^as of course it would be if the 
 mine was really worth ten million or anything like 
 it." 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 293. 
 
 "Did we really ever get out any circular like that?" 
 demanded Greenbaum in a protesting voice. "I don't 
 recall any." 
 
 "That was when we were making a market for the 
 stock," Elderberry reminded him. "We couldn't say 
 enough. Honestly, to look at the thing now is enough 
 to make you sick !" 
 
 "Well, it's just a hold-up— that's what it is. Some 
 crook like this Tutt or this Barrows has found out 
 about Amphalula/and is bringing a strike suit. You'll 
 have to call a meeting right away. I'd like to strangle 
 all these shyster lawyers!" 
 
 And it never occurred to Mr. Greenbaum that the 
 possible existence of the Amphalula vein was what 
 in fact made the order to show cause justifiable — ^his 
 actual ground of complaint being that anybody should, 
 as he assumed, have found out about it in defiance of 
 his plans. 
 
 "Yeromier," said Attendant Mike Horan as he 
 helped Judge PoUak into his black bombazine gown in 
 his chambers in the old Post-Office Building on the 
 morning of the return day, "there's a great bunch out 
 there in the court room waitin' for ye, an' no mistake !" 
 
 "Indeed!" remarked His Honor. "And who are 
 they? What is the case?" 
 
 "Hanged if I know," answered Mike, snipping a 
 piece of flufif off his judgeship's shoulder. "There's a 
 white-bearded old guy, two or three swell gents with 
 tall hats, Counselor Tutt and an attorney named Chip- 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 295 
 
 Chippingham, springing to his feet. "I think the 
 court should be informed at the outset that this man, 
 Barrows, is a notorious ex-convict." 
 
 Judge Pollak raised his eyebrows. 
 
 "This is an outrage !" thundered Mr. Tutt, his form 
 rising ceilingward. "My client — like all of us — ^has 
 had his misfortunes, but they are happily a thing of 
 the past; he has the same rights as if he were an arch- 
 bishop, the president of a university or — a judge of 
 this honorable court." 
 
 "We are sitting in equity," remarked His Honor. 
 "The question of bona fides is a vital one. Is the com- 
 plainant an ex-convict?" 
 
 "This is the complainant, sir," cried Mr. Tutt, in- 
 dicating old Doc, now for the first time in his life 
 smartly arrayed in a new checked suit, red tie, patent- 
 leather shoes and suede gloves, and with his beard 
 neatly trimmed. "This is the unfortunate man whose 
 honest savings of a lifetime are being wrested from 
 him by an unscrupulous group of manipulators who — 
 in my opinion — are more deserving of confinement be- 
 hind prison walls than he ever was." 
 
 The gentlemen with the tall hats bit their lips and 
 showed signs of poorly suppressed agitation. 
 
 "But is your client an ex-convict, Mr, Tutt?" re- 
 peated the judge quietly. 
 
 "Yes, Your Honor, he is." 
 
 "When and how did he become possessed of his 
 stock?" 
 
294 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 pingham, besides that pretty Miss Wiggin; and they 
 ain't speakin' none to one another, neither." 
 
 "It must be that mining-reorganization case," an- 
 swered the judge. "Well, it's time to go in." 
 
 They walked down the dirty marble corridor and en- 
 tered the court room, while the clerk rapped on the 
 railing. 
 
 "Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! All persons hav- 
 ing any business to do with the District Court of the 
 United States draw near, give your attention and you 
 will be heard," he intoned with unctuous authority. 
 
 The "bunch" rose and made obeisance. 
 
 "Good morning," said the judge pleasantly, sitting 
 down with a side switch of the bombazine. "Bar- 
 rows against the^ — er — er — Horse's Neck Mining 
 Company. Do you represent the complainant, Mr. 
 Tutt?" 
 
 "I do," answered Mr. Tutt with great dignify. 
 "Your Honor, this is a motion for an order to show 
 cause why an injunction pendente lite should not issue 
 restraining the sale of the assets of this corporation 
 to another in fraud of its minority stockholders — and 
 for a receiver. My client, an aged man living upon 
 his farm in the northern part of the state, is the owner 
 of one hundred thousand shares in the Horse's Neck 
 Mining Company of the par value of one hundred 
 thousand dollars. He has owned these securities for 
 many years. They represent his entire capital. He 
 is a bona fide stockholder " 
 
 "May I be pardoned for interrupting?" sneered 
 
296 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Mr. Tutt turned to Doc with an air of ineffectually 
 striving to master his righteous indignation. 
 
 "Tell the court, Mr. Barrows," he cried, "in your 
 own words." 
 
 Doc Barrows wonderingly rose. 
 
 "If you please, sir," he began, "it's quite a long 
 stoty. You see, I was the owner of all the stock of 
 The Chicago Water Front and Terminal. Company — 
 there was a flaw in the title deed whidi I can explain 
 to you privately if you wish — and when I was — er — 
 visiting — up on the Hudson — I met a man there who 
 was the owner of a hundred thousand shares of 
 Horse's Neck, and we agreed to exchange." 
 
 The judge tried to hide a slight smile. 
 
 "I see," he replied pleasantly. "And what was the 
 man's name?" 
 
 "Oscar Bloom, sir." 
 
 The gentlemen with the tall hats exchanged agitated 
 glances. 
 
 "Do you know how he got his stock ?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "That is all. Go on, Mr. Tutt." 
 
 Doc sat down while Mr. Tutt again tmhooked his 
 lank form. 
 
 "To resume where I was interrupted, Your Honor, 
 the directors controlling a majority of the stock of this 
 corporation, the capital of which is ten millions of dol- 
 lars, have made a contract to sell all of its properties 
 to another eorjjoration, organized by themselves and 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 297 
 
 capitalized for one million, for the sum of one hundred 
 and twenty-five thousand dollars ! 
 
 "It is true that in their plan of reorganization they 
 oflfer to permit any stockholder in the old corporation 
 to subscribe for stock in the new at par — thus at first 
 glance placing all upon what seems to be an equality ; 
 but any stockholder who does not see fit to subscribe 
 or cannot afford to do so is wiped out, for there will 
 be nothing left in the way of assets in Horse's Neck 
 after the transfer is completed. 
 
 "Now these gentlemen have underwritten the stock 
 in the new Lallapaloosa Company at fifty cents upon 
 the dollar, and if this nefarious deal is permitted to 
 go through they will thus acquire a property worth ten 
 millions for five hundred thousand dollars, of which 
 they will use only one hundred and twenty-five thou- 
 sand in payment of old indebtedness. In effect, they 
 confiscate the equity of all the minority stockholders 
 in Horse's Neck who cannot afford to subscribe for 
 stock in Lallapaloosa." He turned upon the uncom- 
 fortable tall hats with an arraigning eye. 
 
 "In the criminal courts, Your Honor, such a con- 
 spiracy would be properly described as grand larceny ; 
 in Wall Street perchance it may be viewed as high 
 finance. But so long as there are courts of equity such 
 a wrong upon a helpless stockholder will not go unre- 
 buked. Have I made myself clear to Your Honor?" 
 
 Judge Pollak looked interested. He was a man 
 famous for his protection of helpless minorities and his 
 court had been selected by Mr. Tutt on this account. 
 
298 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "If the facts are as you state them, Mr. Tutt," he 
 answered seriously, "the plan on its face would seem 
 to be inequitable. If the property is worth ten million 
 the consideration is palpably inadequate. Your client's 
 equity, worth on that basis at least one hundred thou- 
 sand dollars, would be entirely destroyed without any 
 redress." 
 
 "Your Honor," burst out Mr. Chippingham, whose 
 bald head had been bobbing about in excited contiguity 
 with the tall hats, "this is a most misleading statement. 
 The assets of Horse's Neck aren't worth a hundred 
 thousand dollars. And if any of the minority don't 
 want to come into the reorganization — and I assure 
 Your Honor that we would welcome their participa- 
 tion — ^they can have their equity appraised Onder the 
 laws of Delaware and the finding becomes a lien on 
 the assets even after they have been transferred." 
 
 "What relief does that give a man like Mr. Bar- 
 rows?" shouted Mr. Tutt. "He can't afford to go 
 down to Wilmington with a carload of books and a 
 corps of experts to prove the value of Horse's Neck. 
 It would cost him more than his stock is worth !" 
 
 "That remedy is not exclusive, in any event," de- 
 clared the judge. "If this complainant is going to be 
 defrauded I will enjoin this contract pendente lite and 
 appoint a receiver." 
 
 "Your Honor!" protested Chippingham in great 
 agony. "It is not the fact that this mine is worth ten 
 million. It isn't worth at the most more than one 
 hundred thousand. It is full of water, the machinery 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 299 
 
 is rusted and falling to pieces and the workings are 
 practically exhausted. The only way to rehabilitate this 
 property is for everybody to come in and put up enough 
 money by subscribing to the stock of the new corpora- 
 tion to pump it out, buy new engines and start produc- 
 ing again. Is it fair to the majority, who are willing 
 to go on, put up more money, and make an attempt to 
 save the property, to have this complainant — an ex- 
 convict who never paid a cent for his stock, dug up 
 from heaven knows where — enjoin their contract and 
 throw the corporation into the hands of a receiver? 
 This is nothing but a strike suit. I repeat — a strike 
 suit!" 
 
 He glowered breathless at his adversary. 
 
 "Oh! Oh!" groaned Mr. Tutt in horrified tones. 
 
 "Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" expostulated the court. 
 'This will not do!" 
 
 "I beg pardon — of the court," stammered Mr. Chip- 
 pingham. 
 
 "Your Honor," mourned Mr. Tutt, "I have prac- 
 tised here for thirty years and this is the first time I 
 have ever been insulted in open court. A strike suit? 
 I hold in my hand" — he waved it threateningly at the 
 tall hats — "a circular issued by these directors less 
 than five years ago, in which they give the itemized 
 value of this property as ten million dollars. Shortly 
 after that circular was issued the stock sold in the open 
 market at one dollar and ninety cents a share. In two 
 years it sank to ten cents a share. Will a little water, 
 a littk rust, a little trouble with labor reduce the value 
 
300 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 of a great property like this from ten millions of dol- 
 lars to one hundred thousand — one per cent of its ap- 
 praised value? Either" — ^he fixed Chippingham with 
 an exultant and terrifying glance — "they were lying 
 then or they are lying now!" 
 
 "Let me look at that circular," directed Judge Pol- 
 lak. He took it from Mr. Tutt's eager hand, glanced 
 through it and turned sharply upon the quaking Chip- 
 pingham. 
 
 "How long have you been attorney for Scherer, 
 Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck?" 
 
 "Twelve years. Your Honor." 
 
 "Who is Wilson W. Elderberry?" 
 
 "He is the secretary of the Horse's Neck Extension, 
 Your Honor." 
 
 "Is he in court?" 
 
 From a distant comer Mr. Elderberry bashfully 
 rose. 
 
 "Come here !" ordered the court. And the Pooh Bah 
 of the Scherer-Hunn-Greenbaum-Beck enterprises 
 came cringing to the bar. 
 
 "Did you sign this circular in 1914?" demanded 
 Judge PoUak. 
 
 "Yes, Your Honor." 
 
 "Were the statements contained in it true?" 
 
 Elderberry squirmed. 
 
 "Ye-es, Your Honor. That is — they were to the 
 best of my knowledge and belief. I was, of course, 
 obliged to take what information was at hand — and 
 r— and " 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 301 
 
 "Did you sign the other circular, issued last month, 
 to the effect that the mine was practically valueless?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." Elderberry studiously examined the 
 moldings on the cornice of the judge's canopy. 
 
 "Um !" remarked the court significantly. 
 
 There was a flurry among the tall hats. Then Mr. 
 Greenbaum sprang to his feet. 
 
 "If you please. Your Honor," he announced, stac- 
 cato, "we entirely disavow Mr. Elderberry's circular 
 of 1914. It was issued without our knowledge or au- 
 thority. It is no evidence that the mine was worth ten 
 millions or any other amount at that time." 
 
 "Oh! Oh!" choked Mr. Tutt, while Miss Wiggin 
 giggled delightedly into her brief case. 
 
 Judge Pollak bent upon Mr. Greenbaum a withering 
 glance. 
 
 "Did your firm sell any of its holdings in Horse's 
 Neck after the issuance of that circular?" 
 
 Greenbaum hesitated. He would have liked to wring 
 that judge's neck. 
 
 "Why — ^how do I know? We may have." 
 
 "Did you?" 
 
 "Say 'yes,' for God's sake," hissed Chippingham, 
 "or you'll land in the pen !" 
 
 "I am informed that we did," answered Greenbaum 
 defiantly. "That is, I don't say we did. Very likely 
 we did. Our books would show. But I repeat— we 
 disavow this circular and we deny any responsibility 
 for this man. Elderberry." 
 
 This man. Elderberry, who for twelve long years 
 
302 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 had writhed under the biting lash of his employer's 
 tongue, hating him with a hatred known only to those 
 in subordinate positions who are bribed to suffer the 
 "whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrohg, the 
 proud man's contumely," quivered and saw red. He 
 was going to be made the goat! They expected him 
 to take all the responsibility and give them a clean 
 slate ! The nerve of it ! To hell with them ! Suddenly 
 he began to cry, shockingly, with deep stertorous sus- 
 pirations. 
 
 "No — ^you won't !" he hiccuped. "You shan'£ lay the 
 blame on me ! I'll tell the truth, I will ! I won't stand 
 for it ! Your Honor, they want to reorganize Horse's 
 Neck because they think there's a vein in Amphalula 
 that crosses one of the old workings and that it'll make 
 the property worth millions and millions." 
 
 Utter silence descended upon the court room — a si- 
 lence broken only by the slow ticktack of the self-wind- 
 ing clock on the rear wall and the whine of the electric 
 cars on Park Row. One of the tall hats crept quietly 
 to the door and vanished. The others sat like images. 
 
 Then the court said very quietly: "I will adjourn 
 this matter for one week. I need not point out that 
 what has occurred has a very grave interpretation. Ad- 
 journ court!" 
 
 Old Doc Barrows, the two Tutts and Miss Wiggin 
 were sitting in Mr. Tutt's office an hour later when 
 Willie announced that Mr. Tobias Greenbaum was out- 
 side and would like an interview. 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 303 
 
 "Send him in !" directed Mr. Tutt, winking at Miss 
 Wiggin. 
 
 Mr. Greenbaum entered, frowning and without salu- 
 tation, while Doc partially rose, moved by the acquired 
 instinct of disciplinary politeness, then changed his 
 mind and sat down again. 
 
 "See here," snarled Greenbaum. "You sure have 
 made a most awful hash of this business. I don't want 
 to argue about it. We could go ahead and beat you, 
 but PoUak is prejudiced and will probably give you 
 your injunction and appoint a receiver. If he does, 
 that will knock the whole property higher than a kite. 
 Nobody would ever buy stock in it or even finance it. 
 Now how much do you want to call off your suit ?" 
 
 "Have a stogy?" asked Mr. Tutt politely. 
 
 "Nope." 
 
 "We want exactly one hundred thousand dollars." 
 
 Greenbaum laughed derisively. 
 
 "A hundred thousand fiddlesticks ! This old jailbird 
 swindled another crook. Bloom " 
 
 "Oh, Bloom was a crook too, was he?" chuckled 
 Mr. Tutt. "He worked for your firm, didn't he?" 
 
 "That's nothing to do with it !" retorted Greenabum 
 angrily. "Your swindling client traded some bum 
 stock in a fake corporation for Bloom's stock, which 
 he received for bona fide services " 
 
 "Like Elderberry's?" inquired Tutt innocently. 
 
 "Your man never paid a cent for his holdings. That 
 alone would throw him out of court. The mine isn't 
 worth a cent without the Amphalula vein. We're tak- 
 
304 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 ing a big chance. You've got us down and we've got 
 to pay ; but we'll pay only ten thousand dollars — that's 
 final." 
 
 "I ain't any more of a swindler than you be !'• said 
 Doc with plaintive indignation. 
 
 "What do you wish to do, Mr. Barrows?" asked 
 Mr. Tutt, turning to him deferentially. 
 
 "I leave it entirely to you, Mr. Tutt. It's your 
 stock ; I gave it all to you months ago." 
 
 "Then," answered Mr. Tutt with fine scorn, "I 
 shall tell this miserable cheating rogue and rascal either 
 to pay you a hundred thousand dollars or go to hell." 
 
 Mr. Tobias Greenbaum clenched his fists and cast a 
 black glance upon the group. 
 
 "You can wreck this corporation if you choose, you 
 bunch of dirty blackmailers, but you'll get not a cent 
 more than ten thousand. For the last time, will you 
 take it or not?" 
 
 Mr. Tutt rose and pointed toward the door. 
 
 "Kindly remove yourself before I call the police," 
 he said coldly. "I advise the firm of Scherer, Hunn, 
 Greenbaum & Beck to retain criminal counsel. Your 
 ten thousand may come in handy for that purpose,'' 
 
 Mr. Tobias Greenbaum went. 
 
 "And now, Miss Wiggin, how about a cup of tea?"' 
 said Mr. Tutt. 
 
 The firm of Tutt & Tutt claimed to be the only law 
 firm in the city of New York which still maintained 
 the historic English custom of having tea at five 
 o'clock. Whether the claim had any foundation or not 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 305 
 
 the tea was none the less an institution, undoubtedly 
 generating 9, friendly, sociable atmosphere throughout 
 the office ; and now Willie pulled aside the screen in the 
 corner and disclosed the gate-leg table over which Miss 
 Wiggin exercised her daily prerogative. Soon the 
 room was filled with the comfortable odor of Pekoe, 
 of muffins toasted upon an electric heater, of cigarettes 
 and stogies. Yet there was, and had been ever since 
 their conversation about the hat, a certain restraint 
 between Miss Wiggin and Mr. Tutt, rising presumably 
 out of her suggestion that his course savored of black- 
 mail, however justified it had afterward turned out 
 to be. 
 
 "My, isn't this nice!" murmured Doc, trying un- 
 successfully to eat a muffin, drink his tea and do justice 
 to a stogy at the same time. "It's so homy now, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 "Doc," answered Mr. Tutt, "did you really want that 
 ten thousand?" 
 
 "Me?" repeated Doc vaguely. "Why, I told you 
 I gave that stock to you long ago. It isn't mine any 
 longer. Besides, I don't want any money. I'm per- 
 fectly happy as I am." 
 
 Mr. Tutt laughed genially. 
 
 "Oh, well," he said, "it's no matter who owns it. 
 ]^lderberry just telephoned me that he had received a 
 telegram from the Amphalula that the vein had def- 
 initely run out. It's all over — including the shouting." 
 
 "Elderberry telephone you?" queried Miss Wiggin 
 in astonishment. 
 
306 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Yes, Elderberry. You see, he's done, he says, with 
 Scherer, Hunn, Greenbaum & Beck. Wants to turn 
 state's evidence and put 'em all in jail. I've said I'd 
 halp him." 
 
 "Then why didn't you take the ten thousand and call 
 it quits while the getting was good?" demanded his 
 partner icily. 
 
 "Because I knew I'd never get the ten anyway," re- 
 plied Mr. Tutt. "Greenbaum would have learned 
 about the vein on his return to the office." 
 
 "Well, I must be getting along back to Pottsville!" 
 mumbled Doc. "This has been a very pleasant trip — 
 very pleasant; and quite — quite — exciting. I " 
 
 "What I'd like to know, Mr. Tutt," interrupted Miss 
 Wiggin, "is how you justify your course in this matter. 
 When you attempted to block this proposed reorgani- 
 zation you knew nothing about the Elderberry circular 
 of 1914 valuing the property at ten million, or of the 
 Amphalula vein. On its face you were attempting to 
 wreck a perfectly honest piece of financiering, and un- 
 less it was a strike suit — which I hope and pray it 
 wasn't " 
 
 "Strike suit!" protested Mr. Tutt with a slight 
 twinkle in his eye. "How can you suggest such a 
 thing! Didn't the events demonstrate the wisdom of 
 my judgment?" 
 
 "But you didn't know what was going to happen 
 when you began your suit!" she argued firmly. "I 
 hate to say it, but I should think that if everything had 
 
LALLAPALOOSA LIMITED 307 
 
 not come out just as it has your motives might easily 
 have been misconstrued." 1 
 
 "It was a matter of principle with me, my dear," 
 declared Mr. Tutt solemnly. "Just to show there's ho 
 ill feeling, won't you give me another cup of tea?" 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 
 
 "The hand is quicker than the eye."— The Man With the 
 Three Walnut Shells. 
 
 "If any man can convince me and bring home to me that I do 
 not think or act aright, gladly will I change ; for I search after 
 truth, by which man never yet was harmed. But he is harmed 
 who abideth on still in his deception and ignorance." — Marcus 
 
 AUREUUS. 
 
 Mr. Cephas McFee opened his safe-deposit box 
 in the secrecy of the cubicle to which he had been 
 escorted by the deferential attendant, and gazed with 
 satisfaction upon its bulging contents. A warm glow 
 rose through his fat little body at the sight of the 
 equally fat packages of bonds and stock certificates, 
 and the thick bundles of notes and mortgages. Slipped 
 through the heavy rubber band encircling the topmost 
 manila envelope was a roll of United States Govern- 
 ment 4j4 per cent short-term notes which he had thrust 
 there the week be fore-^$2 5,000 of them. He remem- 
 bered the amount exactly, for he had sold certain stocks 
 upon which he had a profit of nearly $10,000, and in- 
 vested the proceeds in the notes, which were practically 
 as liquid as currency and could be disposed of anywhere 
 at par. Then he had purchased some other securities 
 at a lower price but equally desirable, and had paid 
 for them with part of the notes, and he had had 
 
 306 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 309 
 
 $25,000 of them left. He had counted them before 
 he had sHpped them under the band of the envelope, 
 but he took them out and counted them again : $25,000. 
 
 Mr. McFee put the notes carefully in his pocket, 
 closed the box, slid it back into its allotted resting- 
 place among the tiers of similar receptacles in the 
 vault outside and climbed up to the light of day. It 
 always gave him pleasure to visit the vault, for no 
 matter how his affairs had been going the vision of his 
 hoard inevitably not only reassured him but convinced 
 him of his superiority to other men. In fact, his 
 affairs never weat otherwise than well, though some- 
 times he liked to pretend that they did, for the fun of 
 discovering that he was mistaken. 
 
 Mr. McFee had what bankers call the "feel for 
 money." Occasionally, it must be admitted, he felt it 
 so hard that the Indians, turkeys, buffaloes and other 
 fauna engraved thereon squirmed in agony. He 
 boasted that he could squeeze a quarter Until the eagle 
 screamed and could make a dollar go farther to-day 
 than Washington had when he threw one across the 
 Potomac [Circ. A. D. 1748]. He saw everything, he 
 remembered everything, he was sure of everything. 
 Nobody could trick him. People often said of him," as 
 some one once said of Macaulay, that they wished they 
 could be as certain of anything as McFee was of every- 
 thing. 
 
 In support of this general reputation for om- 
 niscience, and even for prescience, let it here be said 
 that the day before he had figured out that Union 
 
310 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Pacific was bound to go up, had bought two hundred 
 shares through his brokers, Westbury & Wheatland, 
 and had had the gratification of seeing it close at an 
 advance of three points and a half. His visit to the 
 vault had been for the purpose of paying for the stock 
 with the $25,000 in 4>4 per cent U. S. notes. 
 
 Mr. Westbury was reading the tape when Mr. Mc- 
 Fee came in. 
 
 "Hello, early bird !" he exclaimed jocosely, for Mr. 
 McFee was a valuable customer and he liked to create 
 an impression of intimacy. "Looking for worms?" 
 Mr. McFee's thin mouth curved in the slightest sug- 
 gestion of a smile. 
 
 "Nope," he answered. "I've got the worms already. 
 Now I'm payin' for 'em." 
 
 He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the 
 notes. 
 
 "I wanta take up that two hundred U. P. I bought 
 yesterday. Here's twenty-five thousand dollars in 
 U. S. four and a halves. Gimme a receipt." 
 
 Then he ran his forefinger through the notes and 
 counted them again. 
 
 "Twenty-five thousand," he repeated. "Take 'em !" 
 
 Mr. Westbury received the notes, counted them in 
 turn, and nodded. 
 
 "Here, Prescott," he called to the anemic cashier in 
 the cage. "Here's twenty-five thousand dollars in U. 
 S. four and a half per cents — give Mr. McFee a re- 
 ceipt for them." 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 311 
 
 "Yes, sir!" responded Prescott with alacrity, for 
 Mr. Westbury was a hard master. 
 
 He hurried forward, bowed politely to the customer, 
 who paid no attention to him, received the notes from 
 his employer, counted them, returned to the cage, and 
 in a couple of minutes more came back and handed 
 the receipt to Mr. McFee. 
 
 "I'll send the certificates over in a couple of days, as 
 soon as we can get 'em transferred," said Mr. West- 
 bury. "And meantime I'll dispose of the notes to our 
 bank and credit you with the proceeds." 
 
 "Mind you don't charge me any commission !" cau- 
 tioned Mr. McFee. "This ain't any stock-exchange 
 transaction." 
 
 "Oh, that'll be all right!" agreed Mr. Westbury, 
 smiling at the departing McFee. "Stingy little cock- 
 roach !" he added to himself. 
 
 Back in the cage, to which the light of day did not 
 percolate, Prescott, the cashier, pinned the notes to- 
 gether and made the proper entries in the firm's books 
 to cover the transaction. Then he put on his coat and 
 hat, explained to Mr. Westbury that he was just going 
 to carry the notes over to the bank, and took the ele- 
 vator to the first floor, where he went to a telephone 
 booth and called up his wife. The kid was sick and 
 the doctor had not arrived when he had left for the 
 office that morning, so he was anxious and worried. 
 He did not like to telephone from the office because 
 the other clerks could overhear what he said, and he 
 was naturally sensitive. 
 
312 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Is that you, Mollie? . . . Yes, it's me— Jim. 
 How's Jennie?" 
 
 "Oh, Jim, the doctor says her temperature is a hun- 
 dred and three and she may be going to have the flu, 
 but he can't tell before noon. Couldn't you manage 
 to get off?" 
 
 "Poor little Jennie !" he groaned. "I guess she'll be 
 all right — she's a strong kid. But I can't get away — 
 old Westbury would fire me if I asked him. I'll call 
 up about twelve-thirty, though. Maybe I can sneak 
 home at the noon hour." 
 
 His mind was full of little Jennie as he climbed up 
 the marble steps of the Nordic Trust five minutes later 
 and joined the surging line in front of the loan clerk's 
 window. He was terribly sorry for Mollie, having to 
 take care of her all alone. He'd noticed that the kid's 
 cheeks were flushed when he bent over the bed to kiss 
 her good-by. That cursed flu — it killed people like 
 flies — in a few hours. Jennie might die before he 
 could get back to her! The sweat beaded his fore- 
 head under the thin hair of his half bald head. Then 
 the sharp voice of the loan clerk brought him abruptly 
 to himself : 
 
 "What are you trying to do — ^put something over?" 
 
 He glanced quickly up. He was in front of the 
 window and the clerk was holding the notes which 
 Prescott had automatically pushed through the bars. 
 
 "What do you mean?" he stammered huskily. 
 
 "This ain't twenty-five thousand — it's only sixteen 
 thousand," snapped the clerk. "Your slip says twen- 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 313 
 
 ty-five thousand. Count 'em yourself. I haven't even 
 taken the pin out." 
 
 Jim Prescott made no move to take the notes, for he 
 could not see them. His whole body seemed suddenly 
 to dissolve. His throat was like a thicket of nettles. 
 He swayed — and clutched blindly at the bars of the 
 window. Through heaving blotches of black and yel- 
 low he saw a big marble clock dancing round in a sort 
 of fox trot. Eleven-fifty. The doctor would be al- 
 most there. 
 
 "Count 'em yourself, now. Get busy. Don't hold 
 up the line all day." 
 
 Shaking, he yet managed to pull himself together 
 sufficiently to count the notes. There was only $16,000 
 — a ten-thousand-dollar note, a five and a one. 
 
 "Sixteen, ain't it ?" demanded the clerk less harshly. 
 
 Jim weakly nodded and staggered back to the row 
 of deposit desks against the wall opposite. He was 
 short $9,000. The line moved forward. 
 
 "Buck up !" called the clerk over their heads, count- 
 ing a bundle of certificates the while. "You'll find the 
 other nine thousand on your desk." 
 
 But Jim knew otherwise. There was no other 
 $9,000. Those three notes were the only notes that 
 Mr, Westbury had given him. He must have mis- 
 counted them — ^yet he had signed a receipt for $25,000. 
 He was responsible for the money, even if he should 
 not be accused of stealing it. He gasped for breath, 
 struggling against a wave of nausea. He was done 
 for — had signed his own death warrant. He could 
 
314 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 not go back of his own signed receipt. Moreover, Mr. 
 Westbury had also counted the notes. There was a 
 hideous mistake somewhere. Time was needed to 
 find it out. He mustn't lose the $16,000, anyhow. He 
 stuffed the fist in which the notes were grasped into his 
 pocket and held it there. Where should he go? West- 
 bury he feared more than anybody in the world. West- 
 bury would have him arrested. No, he must try Mr. 
 McFee. Perhaps he at least would be reasonable about 
 it and suggest some possible explanation. He couldn't 
 tell Westbury; that would be suicide. 
 
 Yet upon the bare chance that without knowing it 
 he might have left the $9,000 in notes somewhere in 
 the cage he sneaked back and began searching it hys- 
 terically. 
 
 "D'you turn over those notes?" inquired Westbury, 
 going by. 
 
 "Yes, sir," stammered Jim in desperation. He must 
 conceal the situation from this Simon Legree at all 
 hazards. 
 
 But there was no sign of the notes upon the desk or 
 anywhere in the cage. He got down on his hands 
 and knees and ferreted round the floor like a pointer 
 dog. He looked in every possible place a dozen or 
 twenty times. Then his nerves seemed to snap and 
 he went wild — ^pulling open drawers and dumping out 
 the contents, holding the ledgers upside down and shak- 
 ing them — looking inside fastened bundles of folded 
 papers. No — ^he never had any such notes ! McFee' — 
 if he thought about it — would know that to be the fact. 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 315 
 
 He looked at the clock. It was his noon hour. He 
 had never before in his life needed sustenance as he 
 did now, but he had no time for food. He must find 
 Mr. McFee at once. So he grabbed his hat and had 
 rushed out onto the street before he realized that he 
 did not know where the man's office was. A telephone 
 book told him, and that suggested Mollie and the kid. 
 
 "The doctor's here now," came his wife's scared 
 voice over the wire. "He says Jennie's got it — ^but if 
 it don't turn into pneumonia she'll pull through. Are 
 you coming home?" 
 
 "What's her temperature?" he choked. 
 
 "One hundred and five," she ansv/ered. "Please 
 come. Don't leave me alone!" 
 
 The telephone sounded to him like a death rattle and 
 he groped his way out to the street, palsied with the 
 fear of losing at one and the same time his child, his 
 liberty and his honor. 
 
 Mr. McFee was not in his office, but had gone to his 
 lunch club, they told him; and after waiting about 
 twenty minutes the strain proved too great and Jim 
 hurried over to that gloomy home of midday respect- 
 ability on Pine Street known as the Down Town As- 
 sociation. Yes, Mr. McFee had come in, but he was 
 lunching on the third floor with two other gentlemen. 
 
 "Please ask him to see me !" begged Prescott of the 
 doorman, and his aspect was such that the members 
 on their way out paused curiously to look at him. There 
 was considerable delay before word was brought that 
 
3i6 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Mr. McFee would see Jim in the top-floor hall if he 
 would come up. 
 
 "Well, well— what is it?" inquired McFee irritably, 
 leading him into an empty private dining-room. "I'm 
 right in the middle of my lunch. Couldn't you wait?" 
 
 "Mr. McFee," stuttered Jim, "are you sure you 
 gave Mr. Westbury twenty-five thousand dollars this 
 morning?" 
 
 McFee sprang backward, as if he had received a 
 heavy blow upon his fagade. , 
 
 "What! Am I sure? Of course I'm sure ! I count- 
 ed 'em. So did Westbury! What's more, I've got 
 your receipt. Look here, young feller, what are you 
 trying to put over on me ?" 
 
 "I'm not trying to put over anything," Jim pleaded 
 piteously. "I took the notes to the bank and found 
 there was only sixteen thousand dollars. I must have 
 miscounted " 
 
 Mr. McFee uttered an exclamation of derision. 
 
 "Miscounted 'em! Rats! You're short nine thou- 
 sand dollars in your accounts, eh ? You want to make 
 it up out of me ! Do I look like that kind of a sucker? 
 Go tell that to the police !' ' * 
 
 Jim swallowed hard, staring at McFee with smart- 
 ing eyes. "But they're the same notes " 
 
 "Look here," bellowed McFee. "I don't care any- 
 thing about you — you're only a marker. But I've got 
 your receipt for twenty-five thousand dollars from 
 Westbury & Wheatland. You want me to say they 
 owe me only sixteen thousand dollars. What do you 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 317 
 
 take me for — a damn fool? Has Westbury sent you 
 round here to work the baby act on me?" 
 
 "No," replied Jim faintly. "I haven't told Mr. 
 Westbury yet." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because I thought it was no use. He'd counted the 
 notes. You had the receipt. If you couldn't help me 
 he couldn't." 
 
 "Well, he's goin' to know it almighty quick !" Mc- 
 Fee's glaring eye rapidly searched the room for a tele- 
 phone. "There's only one person knows where that 
 nine thousand dollars has disappeared to — and that's 
 you. If I don't have the whole twenty-five thousand 
 dollars back by three o'clock I'll get a warrant out for 
 your arrest. You've got just two hours to fix things 
 up. Better make the most of your time." 
 
 The hard line of Cephas McFee's mouth looked like 
 the closed door of a prison to poor Jim Prescott.. 
 
 "Understand," hissed McFee, "I mean it!" 
 
 Jim felt his way down the stairs with one hand 
 against the wall. 
 
 The jig was up. He had no defense. It was his 
 own fault. They would claim that he had stolen the 
 $9,000 between the office and the bank, and then in- 
 vented the best excuse he could. It was certainly a 
 hell of an excuse ! 
 
 If he went back to the office Westbury would brow- 
 beat, insult and humiliate him. Then he would be 
 taken directly to the Tombs. If, instead, he went home 
 he'd escape all that and have an hour at least with 
 
3i8 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Mollie and his little dying Jennie. He'd telephone the 
 office where they could find him. He forgot entirely 
 the $16,000 in his pocket. Outside the club he started 
 running. . . . 
 
 "Tutt," said Mr. Tutt, "after what happened in that 
 tramp case last week I am tempted to paraphrase Ben 
 Jonson's assertion that the Devil is an ass and de- 
 clare that the Law is an ass." 
 
 "Where would that leave us lawyers?" queried Tutt 
 dubiously. "However, I know a lot of attorneys 
 who " 
 
 "Oh, I was only joking," returned his partner as he 
 took a sip from his eleven o'clock tumbler of malt ex- 
 tract. "However, it goes without saying that the law 
 is archaic and more or less absurd. Anyhow, it's 
 based on a fundamental error." 
 
 "What's that?" inquired his partner. 
 
 "Why," answered Mr. Tutt, "the idea that you can 
 achieve justice in individual cases through the applica- 
 tion of so-called general principles. You can't, and 
 everybody knows you can't. No specific case ever yet 
 fitted a general principle any more than an individual 
 face ever fitted a composite photograph." 
 
 "That's true," nodded Tutt. "Then again the law 
 draws a hard and fast line and says that everything on 
 one side is right and everything on the other side is 
 wrong, when really the line ought to wriggle round, 
 and hop up and down, and make exceptions " 
 
 "When really there oughtn't to be any line at all, 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 319 
 
 you mean," retorted Mr. Tutt almost fiercely. "A 
 thing can't be absolutely right or wrong, just or un- 
 just, legal or illegal, any more than a human being 
 can be absolutely good or absolutely bad. The law 
 makes no allowances, except after a man has been 
 convicted. We don't even have the French verdict of 
 'guilty under extenuating circumstances.' " 
 
 "Of course the whole idea of money > damages is 
 ridiculous," remarked Tutt, helping himself to a stogy. 
 "Just as if the jury could compensate a mother whose 
 baby is run over by a fool motorist by giving her a 
 verdict of five or six hundred dollars!" 
 
 "Just fancy classifying a man as a criminal because 
 he falls within some legislative definition, when an- 
 other fellow ten times as bad happens not to do so," 
 continued Mr. Tutt, ignoring the inadequacy of civil 
 damages in favor of his particular hobby — ^the crimi- 
 nal law. "It's arrant nonsense. As an old preceptor of 
 mine used to say, 'The code that puts one man in stripes 
 and allows another to ride in a coach is purely ar- 
 tificial, and proves not a whit which is the better man.' " 
 
 "That's all right !" assented his partner. "When you 
 come to think of it it's pretty foolish for the law to 
 make it murder to push a blind man off a cliff and not 
 to make it any offense at all to let him walk over it, 
 though by stretching out your hand you might prevent 
 him." 
 
 "Omissions to act are almost never crimes," com- 
 mented the senior partner. "You can let your neigh- 
 bor's baby be run over by an oncoming train, even if 
 
320 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 you could easily snatch it out of danger and so save 
 its life, and yet not be guilty of any offense whatever 
 under the law." 
 
 "Or you could let your mother-in-law choke to death 
 without sending for a doctor," grinned Tutt. 
 
 "Quite so," nodded Mr. Tutt. "It's a crime to de- 
 fame a woman's character if you write your accusa- 
 tion upon a slip of paper and pass it to some one else, 
 but it's no crime — at least in New York State — ^to get 
 up in a crowded meeting and ruin her forever by word 
 of mouth." 
 
 "Yes, and it's a crime to steal a banana off a fruit 
 stand," contributed Tutt, "but it's no crime to borrow 
 ten thousand dollars from a man though you have no 
 idea of returning it." 
 
 "You can be the meanest crook on earth and never 
 go to jail," agreed Mr. Tutt. "Plain lying is not a 
 crime, but lying under oath is a crime — yet only pro- 
 vided it is done -in a legal proceeding and relates to a 
 material matter. Nobody on earth knows what is 
 'material' and what isn't." 
 
 "Yes," added Tutt eagerly. "If you steal four 
 hundred and ninety-nine dollars out of a man's safe in 
 the daytime it is grand larceny in the second degree and 
 you can only get five years for it, but if you pick a 
 handkerchief out of the same man's pocket after sun- 
 set it is grand larceny in the first degree and you can 
 get ten years." 
 
 "And if," commented his senior partner, "you take 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 321 
 
 twenty-five dollars out of a bureau drawer it is petty 
 larceny and you can only get a year for it." 
 
 "While a fellow who bumps into you on the street, 
 if he has a friend with him, and grabs your cane, is 
 guilty of robbery in the first degree — ^highway robbery 
 — ^and can get twenty years," growled Tutt. 
 
 "But the same fellow can accuse you in print of the 
 foulest depravity and damage your reputation beyond 
 repair and be only guilty of a misdemeanor." 
 t "Who says the law isn't an ass?" demanded Tutt. 
 ' "No wonder Shakspere speaks of 'Old Father Antic 
 the Law,' " echoed Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "Oh, we could sit here and knock the stuffing out of 
 the law all day," mused Tutt. "But as we get our 
 living by it we'd better leave some of it intact for next 
 year." 
 
 Mr. Tutt smiled a little sadly. 
 
 "Jest as we may, I sometimes feel that an instru- 
 ment as clumsy as the law might better be discarded 
 entirely. Apart from the inconsequence of statutes and 
 the absurdity of their distinctions, how can the law 
 even pretend to dissect the delicate and complicated 
 processes of the human brain or detect the subtle 
 nuances that determine moral guilt or innocence? 
 How can a jury possibly decide who is to blame as 
 between a man and a woman, or two men or two 
 women? Yet in a lawsuit one of the two has either 
 to go to jail or give the other money. As if either of 
 those things would heal a broken heart or even a slap 
 in the face." 
 
322 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "And look at the jury," cried Tutt. "Just look at 
 them! Ignorant, stupid, prejudiced — — '" 
 
 "Sh !" interposed his partner. "Not so loud ! Ndt 
 so loud ! Some of 'em might hear you ! Still, I allow 
 they are ignorant." 
 
 "Why, the ordinary jurjrman," alleged vTutt, 
 "doesn't know the meaning of words like 'subsequent,' 
 'simultaneous' or even 'cravat.' " '. 
 
 "To say nothing of adjectives like 'lurid* or 'spo- 
 radic' or 'livid,' " assented Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "Well, don't ask me what they mean, either," warned 
 his associate. "I'm not betting these days on my gen- 
 eral fund of information. But take the ordinary jury, 
 and how much do you suppose they understand of 
 medical testimony? Do you remember that client of 
 ours who had a sore back ?" 
 
 "And his doctor testified that he was suf5fering from 
 traumatic sacroiliac disease, traumatic synovitis of the 
 knee and wrist and from traumatic myositis of the 
 muscles of the back ? I should say I did," grunted Mr. 
 Tutt. 
 
 "Of course you couldn't blame a jury for getting a 
 bit foggy on stuff like that," went on Tutt. "But most 
 of 'em haven't got enough sense to know what they are 
 there for. I recall an accident case I tried once for a 
 whole week before the Supreme Court, where, after 
 the judge had finished charging with regard to the 
 respective rights of the plaintiff and defendant, the 
 foreman held up his hand and asked innocently, 'Well, 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 323 
 
 Your Honor, which is the plaintiff and which is the 
 defendant?' " 
 
 "He was no worse than that other one," answered 
 Mr. Tutt, "who wanted to know in the corporation 
 case how many head of cattle the defendant owned 
 when a witness testified that he had improperly 'wa- 
 tered the stock.' " 
 
 "They are wonderful !" sighed Tutt. "You wouldn't 
 believe such people existed. But even if they had brains 
 how on earth can they get at the real facts simply by 
 listening to witnesses?" 
 
 "They can't!" ejaculated the elder. 
 
 "Now you've said something," agreed Tutt. "How 
 can the jury decide anything? That's the whole point, 
 so far as I'm concerned. There's no way of finding 
 out which witnesses are telling the truth " 
 
 "Even if they're trying to!" grumbled Mr. Tutt. 
 "Which they generally aren't." 
 
 "I've discovered more things — after cases were all 
 over !" mourned Tutt. "Honestly, the way some people 
 will perjure themselves " 
 
 "Or deceive themselves !" supplemented his partner. 
 
 "Or both," added Tutt. "Have you noticed how a 
 woman will always testify to what she thinks ought 
 to be so?" 
 
 "And how, curiously enough, what ought to be so is 
 always in favor of her side of the case?" commented 
 Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "And she is probably trying to be honest at that," 
 "spined his junior. 
 
324 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Which is entirely outside the merely physical limi- 
 tations of all human testimony. Did you ever stop to 
 consider that every witness is faced with the task of 
 attempting to convey to a heterogeneous bunch of more 
 or less ignorant men, who probably have a very limited 
 vocabulary, his recollection of his impression of what 
 he actually saw or heard at some long-past time ? Now 
 in the first place what a man actually sees and what 
 he thinks he sees are two entirely different things. In 
 the second place he can't remember accurately what 
 he thinks he saw ; and if he could he never in the world 
 would be able to tell anybody else." 
 
 "Quite right, Mr. Tutt," declared Tutt. "A 
 thoroughgoing crook or just a plain damn fool isn't 
 lali so dangerous as a well-intentioned witness who 
 Js honestly mistaken as to what he thinks he heard or 
 saw," 
 
 "Those are the fellows on whose testimony entirely 
 innocent men sometimes go to jail," offered his part- 
 ner. 
 
 "Look here!" said Tutt. "Speaking frankly, how 
 much perfectly accurate testimony do you think is 
 ever given in court?" 
 
 "None!" replied Mr. Tutt with conviction. 
 
 "I wonder, Mr. Tutt, if you would be willing to take 
 a criminal case where there wouldn't be any prospect of 
 a fee, simply to prevent a possible miscarriage of jus- 
 tice?" asked Miss Wiggin after lunch, stopping her em- 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 325 
 
 ployer on his way through the outer office. Mr. Tutt 
 paused with his hand on the doorknob. 
 
 "That's what Tutt & Tutt are for," he answered 
 genially. "But why do you think any injustice is likely 
 tn be done ?" 
 
 "Because," replied Miss Wiggin, "I know the man 
 and, what perhaps is even more important, I know his 
 wife and child. They board in the same house with 
 me. 
 
 "What is he charged with?" 
 
 "Stealing nine thousand dollars in United States 
 four and a half per cent notes." 
 
 "If under those circumstances he still can't pay a 
 fee I should say that he was presumptively innocent!" 
 remarked Mr. Tutt. "Where is he?" 
 
 '^n the Tombs," answered Miss Wiggin. "He was 
 arrested at four o'clock yesterday afternoon in his own 
 rooms, where he had gone to be with his little girl, who 
 was threatened with pneumonia — such a perfectly dear 
 little child, Mr. Tutt." 
 
 The old man's face softened instantly. 
 
 "Got a little girl, has he ? How old is she?" 
 
 "Only three — the loveliest head of yellow curls! 
 Won't you defend him, Mr. Tutt?" 
 
 "Defend him ? Of course I will," he replied. "How 
 is the little girl?" 
 
 "Very sick indeed," answered Miss Wiggin. "He 
 nearly went out of his mind when they took him away 
 from her. And his wife is all alone and can't do any- 
 thing for him." 
 
326 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "When is his case coming up?" inquired her em- 
 ployer, 
 
 "To-morrow morning at ten o'clock." 
 
 Mr. Tutt turned short on his heel. 
 
 "Get your bonnet," said he to Miss Wiggin simply, 
 "and come along." 
 
 "You don't want me to go to the Tombs, do you?" 
 she demanded. "I've plenty to do here." 
 
 "I'll get to the Tombs in time enough," he laughed. 
 "I want you to introduce me to that baby!" 
 
 Mr. Tutt did not return to the office until after 
 five o'clock, and when he did he came alone. Under his 
 instructions Miss Wiggin remained with Mrs. Prescott, 
 to "keep her cheered up," as he said. Shortly after he 
 had gone a trained nurse arrived, and later Mr. Tutt's 
 own doctor happened casually in and took charge of 
 things. 
 
 But while the feminine side of the office stafif of Tutt 
 & Tutt was ministering to the sick and needy the old 
 lawyer himself was very busy along other and differ- 
 ent lines. Ten minutes' chat with Prescott had served 
 to convince him of the latter's entire innocence as well 
 as of the strength of the case against him. No element 
 of proof apparently was lacking to demonstrate his 
 guilt. Each link in the evidential chain seemed to be 
 there. 
 
 In the first place a reputable business man had sworn 
 out a warrant against the defendant charging him with 
 the larceny of $9,000 in notes. Cephas McFee could 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 327 
 
 have no motive in the world to make such an accusa- 
 tion against a stranger if it were not true. Mr. West- 
 bury had counted the notes. Jim had counted and re- 
 ceipted for them. He had lied to his employer when 
 he told him that he had delivered the notes at the bank, 
 and when he was arrested, having fled to his home 
 without any explanation to his office associates, $16,000 
 of the original $25,000 was found still in his pocket. 
 It was a practical confession. As old "Cap" Phelan 
 would have said, "A dead open-and-shut case." 
 
 Yet Mr. Tutt knew that Prescott was innocent. He 
 knew it because he had a greater faith in the man him- 
 self than in any logic or in any testimony, however 
 damning the inference might appear. He knew it just 
 as a husband knows that his wife is faithful and as a 
 mother knows in her heart whether what others say of 
 her boy is or is not true. He knew it just as the gen- 
 eral knows that his troops will win no matter how out- 
 numbered by the enemy divisions. But, like the gen- 
 eral, he knew that he could not sit still and let the 
 enemy attack ; and, like the general, he set his staff in- 
 stantly at work preparing for the battle of the morrow. 
 Prescott could be as innocent as a babe unborn, but 
 he would surely go to prison unless Mr. Tutt should 
 be able to demonstrate that innocence. 
 
 How could he do so? That was his task, his prob- 
 lem. But experienced as he was he lost no time in tak- 
 ing certain preliminary steps. From a pay station in 
 a saloon on Lafayette Street opposite the Tombs he 
 telephoned to the office and directed Tutt to procure 
 
328 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 immediately from a financial ag^ency a report upon the 
 financial status and responsibility of Cephas McFee. 
 Bonnie Doon was ordered to cover McFee's office and 
 not once to let that gentleman out of his sight until he 
 retired to, rest, and then to report all that said McFee 
 had done, to Mr. Tutt personally in his library on 
 Twenty-third Street, no matter what the hour; and 
 Scraggs was instructed to take a ten-dollar bill and 
 scrape an acquaintance with any one of Westbury & 
 Wheatland's clerks who might be known to have a 
 thirst for social intercourse. Yet with all the defi- 
 niteness of his preparations Mr. Tutt had not yet 
 evolved any plan of campaign or decided what his line 
 of defense was going to be. The case was coming 
 up in the Police Court at ten o'clock next morning, and 
 it was now five o'clock in the afternoon. Mr. Tutt 
 meditatively lit a stogy and crossed the street to the 
 Criminal Courts Building. 
 
 "Has Judge O'Hare gone home?" he asked of the 
 dependant standing in the corridor. 
 
 "No, counselor," returned the policeman, "he's still 
 inside. He does a lot of work these days. Attends 
 to all them probation cases himself." He held open 
 the door. "He'll be glad to see you." 
 
 "Hello, Jo!" said Mr. Tutt a moment later to the 
 white-haired man who sat writing beneath the gas 
 light. "I want to talk to you about a case." 
 
 Judge O'Hare continued to write for several sec- 
 onds and then, looking up, remarked impassively, 
 "Tutt— tutt! And yet again— Tutt!" 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 329 
 
 "It's on before you to-morrow morning," continued 
 Mr. Tutt. "It's a curious sort of case." 
 
 "What is it?" The pen began scratching tenta- 
 tively again. 
 
 "Broker's clerk charged with taking notes belong- 
 ing to a customer. Evidence all against him, but — Jo, 
 I know the boy's innocent." 
 
 "What do you want me to do?" 
 
 "Soak him if you think he's guilty, but give me 
 a little leeway in cross-examination." 
 
 Judge O'Hare definitely returned to his writing. 
 
 "Go as far as you like," he said shortly. "I'll give 
 you every chance to prove his innocence." 
 
 Mr. Tutt uttered a snort of mock exasperation: 
 "Heavens! What a commentary on our system of 
 administering criminal justice ! You — a judge — sworn 
 to presume the defendant innocent — ^talking of giving 
 me every chance to prove it!" 
 
 Then with an air of righteous indignation Mr. 
 Tutt strode from the room and crossed to the hostelry 
 known as Pontin's, where Signor Fachini, assisted by 
 a locally celebrated Italian chef, keeps both sides of 
 the criminal bar contented by serving the best veal 
 cutlet and sole Marguery to be had south of Four- 
 teenth Street for seventy-five cents. 
 
 "Signor Fachini," he said in his most impressive 
 tones, "I want you to send over to the Tombs the 
 finest dinner you can get up — for a friend of mine — 
 James Prescott — third tier. Don't fail me now!" 
 
 Then hailing a lost taxi he climbed into it, stopped 
 
330 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 for a moment at the flower stall of Xenophon Xeno- 
 phonopolous beneath the Chatham Square elevated 
 and then, embowered in slightly faded carnations and 
 passe American beauties, shot across the Brooklyn 
 Bridge toward Miss Wiggin, the trained nurse, Mrs. 
 Prescott and Jennie, with the smoke of his stogy trail- 
 ing behind meanwhile and mingling with the exhaust. 
 
 It is an tmdoubted fact — ^which the older we grow 
 becomes more and more apparent — ^that the main- 
 springs of human action are far less complicated than 
 we are prone to think them. We may like to believe 
 that we are actuated by a multitude of interrelated 
 motives, but if we seriously attempt to analyze what 
 has led us to follow any particular course we shall 
 usually discover that it was a single, rather simple, 
 rudimentary desire, characteristic or ambition. We 
 are apt to scoff at the old-fashioned melodramas in 
 which the various dramatis personae seem little else 
 than animated vices and virtues — some representing 
 lust, jealousy or greed, and others honesty, loyalty and 
 self-sacrifice. Yet the melodrama comes pretty near the 
 truth — ^nearer than we ordinarily suppose. The very 
 fact that we use the word "characters" to describe the 
 actors has significance. In ordinary life most of us 
 trim our course by the polestar of some predominating 
 trait; and make our haven or crash upon the rocks 
 by virtue of some single saving grace or besetting sin. 
 So when we crudely stigmatize Jones as a drunkard or 
 a thief, a philanderer, a good sport or an honest man. 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 331 
 
 we are really nearer hitting the mark than if we souglit 
 to dissect his animus after the fashion of Mr. Henry 
 James. 
 
 The mainspring of Mr. Cephas McFee's life was his 
 instinct for acquisition, for getting things and holding 
 on to them. He called it "having his rights." And 
 just as envy or anger will often lead men to do things 
 which in calmer moments they would realize were sub- 
 versive of their ends and even self-destructive, so 
 McFee's acquisitiveness sometimes blinded him to the 
 ultimate effects of his immediate acts, leading him to 
 do on the impulse what in the long run actually mili- 
 tated against his interests. Thus it had not occurred 
 to him for an instant that it could be otherwise than 
 advantageous for him to have Prescott arrested. He 
 told himself that that was the only right course for a 
 virtuous citizen to pursue. The proper thing to do 
 with thieves was to lock 'em up. He would expect his 
 associates to do likewise in similar circumstances. But 
 his real motive in arresting Prescott was the hope 
 that by doing so he might force him to give, back 
 what he had stolen. 
 
 It was not enough that he had a perfectly good 
 cause of action against Westbury & Wheatland. He 
 didn't know what defenses their lawyers might not 
 devise. He did know that you were never sure of 
 anything unless you had got your hooks in itiand had 
 put it in the bank. Even then the bank might fail. 
 It was better to have it in a mortgage. A mere claim, 
 however good,, against a pair of stock brokers— even 
 
332 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 if they called themselves bankers — wasn't one-two- 
 three with holding the threat of jail over a crook. That 
 would get quick action — if the thief still had the 
 notes. If not, McFee could still proceed against West- 
 bury in the regular way. In a word, the criminal law 
 offered a club to his hand which he eagerly snatched. 
 The fact that he might be mistaken or that he might 
 do an injustice was the merest straw swept down the 
 mad current of his self-interest. He could have given 
 a dozen good reasons why he had Prescott locked 
 up, but there was really only one — ^his vindictive pur- 
 pose to make the clerk disgorge what he believed him 
 to have taken. 
 
 But as the hours passed and the anticipated word 
 from Prescott to the effect that if only he could get 
 out of the Tombs he would gladly make restitution 
 did not come, Cephas McFee began to feel not only 
 grievously disappointed but also slightly upset, vaguely 
 perceiving that having brought a criminal charge it was 
 up to him to substantiate it. He even went round to 
 his club and lost a dollar at backgammoh to Frank 
 Cassibeer, of Cassibeer & Fackenthal, in order to piunp 
 him about one's civil habilities when one had another 
 man arrested. He did it cleverly and Cassibeer did 
 not suspect, but he made McFee uneasy by stating 
 casually that one had to be sure that one had reason- 
 able cause. Cephas wanted to ask what "reasonable 
 cause" might be under varying circupistances, but re- 
 frained for fear that the lawyer might smell a rat. Of 
 course he had reasonable cause ! If he hadn't, nobody 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 333 
 
 ever had had. He'd counted the notes; so had West- 
 bury; so had Prescott! And yet it certainly was, now 
 that he came to think of it, a hell of a way to steal 
 $9,000 — ^give a receipt for $25,000 and then say you'd 
 made a mistake ; just after your employer had counted 
 'em, at that! It worried him. But the cuss had run 
 away! Yet McFee knew that he hadn't run farther 
 than his own home. 
 
 He began to wish he had not been quite so precipi- 
 tate. He kjnew that he had had $25,000 in notes. 
 He'd counted 'em in the vault. Had he counted 'em? 
 A slight sweat broke out on his back. Could he swear 
 heM counted 'em ? Of course he could ! Anyhow he'd 
 seen Westbury count them. A strange and utterly 
 unreasonable anxiety began to take hold of him. He 
 was in the right — ^absolutely — ^knew he was in the 
 right — and yet Feverishly he called up West- 
 bury at his house just before dinner. 
 
 The broker was very peevish. Why had McFee 
 gone and made a mess of everything by arresting 
 their cashier? Publicity like that was likely to dam- 
 age their credit. If any arresting was to be done it 
 was Westbury & Wheatland's- affair. They were 
 responsible. 
 
 "But I thought I could make him cough up!" ex- 
 plained McFee, realizing that he had been somewhat 
 inconsiderate in acting as he had without consulting 
 the firm. 
 
 "Well, you didn't, did you ?" snarled Westbury. "If 
 
334 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 he took the notes he's jolly well hung on to 'em, hasn't 
 he?" 
 
 "'If!'" bellowed Cephas through the telephone. 
 "What d'you mean by 'if he took the notes' ?" Already 
 he suspected some collusion between the broker and the 
 clerk by which he would be done out of his money. 
 "You counted the notes, didn't you?" 
 
 "Yes, of course I did!" retorted Westbury, to Mc- 
 Fee's intense relief. "The fact that we're liable to 
 you for the nine thousand dollars is what makes me 
 so sore about your having our man arrested. It'U 
 be all over Wall Street to-morrow morning." 
 
 But still McFee was not satisfied! Down in the 
 depths of his mean, mercenary little soul a horrible sus- 
 picion suddenly reared its head like a basilisk and 
 turned him to stone. Suppose they had all been mis- 
 taken ! There wasn't a chance in the world of it ; the 
 mere idea flouted the laws of reason ; he had a signed 
 admission of Prescott's guilt. But — if by some hocus- 
 pocus the fellow shouldn't be convicted, he, McFee, 
 would certainly be liable in damages. He'd heard that 
 juries sometimes gave enormous verdicts. Pshaw !-r 
 a measly clerk! No need worrying! They'd all 
 counted the notes! Westbury admitted liability. 
 Nothing to worry about. 
 
 Yet in the middle of the night he awoke in a cold 
 chill. Had he really had twenty-five thousand in 
 notes? Had he really counted them when he took them 
 out from under the rubber strap in his safe-deposit 
 box? Had he in fact done anything more than glance 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 335 
 
 over them ? In the secrecy of his bed chamber he ad- 
 mitted to himself that he had not! Had he counted 
 them when he put them there? He tried to bring his 
 mind back to the day when he had brought the notes 
 to the vault, but he could not conjure up the picture. 
 He was convinced that he had counted them upon that 
 occasion — ^but had he ? The terrible thought came that 
 perhaps he had not really coimted them either time — 
 had only taken for granted that there were twenty- 
 five thousand. 
 
 Frantically he got out of bed and paced the floor 
 in his nightshirt, biting his nails. Well, he'd swear 
 that he'd counted them anyway! Nobody could con- 
 tradict him. He had been alone in the vault. And 
 of course there had been twenty-five thousand ! West- 
 bury had counted them. But suppose Westbury hadn't 
 really counted them either? The idea was preposter- 
 ous! Yet curiously enough he began to wonder why 
 he had originally assumed the notes to be of that 
 amount. He turned on the electric light and started 
 figuring out what the transactions had been that had 
 left him with the notes in his possession. He was 
 still hysterically at work when the maid knocked on the 
 door and announced breakfast. 
 
 But McFee could not eat. He gulped half a cup 
 of coffee and hurried downtown to his office. His 
 books would show exactly how many notes he ought 
 to have had. At a quarter to ten he descended in the 
 elevator, his face gray, and feeling rather sick, and 
 as he stepped out into the corridor of the ground floor 
 
336 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 a thin young man handed him a subpoena signed by 
 Magistrate O'Hare ordering him forthwith to produce 
 and bring with him to court "all books of account, rec- 
 ords, documents and other papers relating in any way 
 to the purchase or sale by you of any bonds, stocks or 
 other securities during the past year." 
 
 He ducked back quickly into the elevator, dazed 
 and horrified. Show his books ? Disclose to the world 
 his private affairs? Subject himself to hostile cross- 
 examination in regard to all his business transactions? 
 Risk official scrutiny of his Federal income-tax returns 
 for the last five years ? Lay himself open to the sus- 
 picion of having concealed his true financial status? 
 And, worst of all perhaps, cast doubt upon the actual 
 amount of the notes originally in his possession? 
 Never! It was not to be thought of! Far better to 
 withdraw the charge and let Prescott go! Gradually 
 he got himself in hand and once more descended to 
 the street. 
 
 Now just as the motives animating human action 
 are not half so complicated as they are often made 
 out to be, so what are termed "mysteries" are usually 
 solved not by any highly elaborate or ingenious theo- 
 rizing but by some single pregnant isolated fact, which 
 of itself settles the whole matter as a reagent clears 
 a test tube containing a cloudy mixture of chemicals. 
 Novelists, playwrights and writers of short stories 
 amuse themselves and their readers by the involutions 
 of their inventiveness in devising a myriad of tiny 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 337 
 
 clues which when pieced together into a mosaic present 
 a beautiful picture of guilt or innocence. 
 
 In real life, however, a criminal case more likely 
 turns on just one fact, seemingly insignificant, the 
 importance of which in the beginning is quite apt to 
 be overlooked. Was the cellar door left locked or not? 
 Did Maud leave her vanity case in the taxi? Was it 
 raining or not? How many bananas did Harry eat? 
 Those are the mundane issues upon which a human 
 life often hangs or by virtue of which a hundred- 
 thousand dollar verdict quite properly is rendered. 
 Frequently, though they are almost self-evident they 
 are not thought of until the last witness has Wft the 
 stand, in which event the case has to be reopened and 
 the missing testimony supplied. Many a trial has 
 been won by demonstrating as an afterthought that 
 the chief witness was almost blind or deaf. Far more 
 difficult is it to show that he was mistaken ! 
 
 This, however, was the position in which Mr. Tutt 
 found himself in order to win his case. He must 
 prove not only that Cephas McFee had been mistaken, 
 but Westbury and Prescott as well. All the evening 
 before he had sat in front of the sea-coal fire in his 
 library, smoking one stogy after another, nursing his 
 chin in his hand and studying the various possibilities 
 presented by the evidence as he knew it. He had de- 
 rived no encouragement from any of his emissaries. 
 The financial report upon McFee had been of no assist- 
 ance; Scraggs had succeeded in accomplishing nothing 
 except to get himself hopelessly drunk; and Bonnie 
 
338 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 Doon had telephoned that McFee had gone home be- 
 fore supper and apparently stayed there. Yet after 
 sitting almost motionless and wreathed in smoke for 
 several hours Mr. Tutt suddenly gave utterance to a 
 sort of cluck, and slapped his knee with his right 
 hand. 
 
 "What a fool I was not to have thought of that be- 
 fore!" he muttered. Then he poured out a sup of 
 brandy from the cellaret, poked the fire, turned off the 
 gas and climbed up stairs to bed. 
 
 When Cephas McFee reached the police court the 
 next morning he found Westbury already there in a 
 state of fury. 
 
 "What d'you s'pose they've done?" demanded the 
 broker angrily. "Subpoenaed all our books ! You have 
 made a mess of things ! Why, it would take a truck 
 to bring all our stuff over here, and meanwhile our 
 business would simply go all to hell." 
 
 "Well, you needn't find fault with me about it. 
 I didn't subpoena them. They've done the same thing 
 tome!" 
 
 "That's nothing to what they will do to you!" 
 snapped Westbury. 
 
 McFee shivered. 
 
 "What do you mean?" he asked faintly. 
 
 "Haven't you ever heard of Tutt & Tutt?" inquired 
 the broker. 
 
 "Y-e-es!" admitted the miserable McFee. 
 
 "Old Tutt will turn you inside out!" warned West'" 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 339 
 
 bury. "If you don't take care he'll put you in jail. 
 He don't stop at anything." 
 
 McFee looked at him helplessly. 
 
 "Well, I'm damned if I'll show him my books!" he 
 ejaculated defiantly. 
 
 Westbury laughed heartlessly. 
 
 "A lot you'll have to say about it!" he retorted. 
 "You'll show 'em all right or they'll lock you up!" 
 
 The room was stuffy, full of queer smells, remind- 
 ing McFee of a zoo, and the judge looked like an old 
 white-whiskered baboon with a red mouth that he 
 had once seen in the primates' cage at Bronx Park. 
 This effect was heightened for McFee by the way the 
 policemen acted, as if they were keepers of animals. 
 The whole thing was terrible and disgusting. The 
 cops would haul a man to the bar, the old baboon would 
 chatter and roar at him, another smaller baboon would 
 also chatter and roar somewhat less violently, and then 
 the victim would be led away by the keeper behind 
 a cage. 
 
 "Sit down there, you!" shouted a court officer, 
 scowling, and the pair crouched upon the bench like 
 two whipped setters. 
 
 What shocked McFee was the way people were bul- 
 lied and ordered round. He had heard that the law 
 was no respecter of persons, but he had never sup- 
 posed that the law made a business of insulting people. 
 Then there came a hiatus in the wretched procession 
 of defendants, and McFee saw Jim Prescott standing 
 almost in front of the baboon. Beside him was a tall, 
 
340 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 gaiuit, serious-looking old man with a wrinkled face 
 that suggested Lincoln's. 
 
 An officer picked up a bundle of papers and called 
 out in a raucous voice : "McFee ! Cephas McFee ! Take 
 the stand!" 
 
 McFee rose and made his way forward through a 
 gate in the bar which another officer held open for him. 
 
 "Be sworn!" directed the judge. "Hold up your 
 right hand! No, the right hand! You do solemnly 
 swear that in the matter of the People of the State of 
 New York against James Prescott you will tell the 
 truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth! 
 so help you God? What have you to say?" 
 
 Cephas McFee found his throat very dry and his 
 cheeks very hot. Standing on the platform with his 
 hand in the air he felt like the statue of Liberty En- 
 lightening the World. 
 
 "Is that your signature?" inquired the judge, who 
 closer at hand seemed rather a kindly person. 
 
 McFee nodded. 
 
 "Don't nod your head ! Speak out. The stenogra- 
 pher has to get what you say." 
 
 "Yes," answered McFee. 
 
 The judge ran over the complaint with his eye. 
 
 "You had twenty-five thousand dollars in U. S. 
 four and one-half per cent notes, you delivered them to 
 the defendant, and he gave you a receipt — ^yes? Have 
 you the receipt — yes? He has not delivered the notes 
 to the bank. You charge him with stealing them. Is 
 that correct?" 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 341 
 
 McFee started to nod again and then hastily stam- 
 mered, "Yes. Exactly." 
 
 "Well, that seems simple enough," remarked the 
 judge. "Do you wish to cross-examine, Mr. Tutt?" 
 
 The tall man who looked like Lincoln stretched his 
 shoulders. 
 
 "I certainly do !" he replied significantly, and McFee 
 trembled. 
 
 "How do you know that you had twenty-five thou- 
 sand dollars in notes ?" he asked. 
 
 "Because I counted them," answered McFee bravely. 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "Once when I put them in my box in the vault 
 and again when I took them out to give them to West- 
 bury & Wheatland." 
 
 "Do you distinctly recall counting them on both 
 occasions ?" 
 
 "Yes," replied Cephas brazenly. 
 
 "Do you absolutely and unqualifiedly testify that 
 you took each note separately in your hands and 
 counted it?" 
 
 The room clouded for a moment, then cleared. 
 
 "Yes," agreed McFee. 
 
 "You do, eh?" suddenly interjected the judge, bend- 
 ing forward and fixing Cephas with his eye. "You 
 distinctly recall counting the individual notes?" 
 
 McFee swallowed. 
 
 "Ye-es. Yes, certainly, I do!" 
 
 A grim smile played for an mstant about Mr. Tutt's 
 mouth. 
 
342 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "You are aware that it is a crime to testify falsely 
 in this or any other legal proceeding?" 
 
 "Yes," admitted McFee, and again the room 
 clouded. . 
 
 Mr. Tutt pursed his thin lips. 
 
 "That is all — for the present," he remarked. "If 
 your Honor will instruct the witness to remain I may 
 wish to question him further later on." 
 
 "Can't I get back to my office?" inquired McFee 
 plaintively. "I don't want to be kept dangling round 
 all day. I — -" 
 
 "You'll dangle just as long as you are needed!" 
 chattered the judge, looking as much like a baboon as 
 he had in the beginning. "Are there any more wit- 
 nesses for the complainant?" He looked round 
 vaguely. 
 
 "There's Mr. Westbury," answered Cephas, who 
 though wilted was eager to see the matter through. 
 "He counted the notes." 
 
 "Call him," ordered the judge. 
 
 Mr. Westbury came reluctantly forward while Mr. 
 McFee took his vacant place on the settee. 
 
 "Did you count the notes?" asked His Honor. 
 
 "I did," affirmed Mr. Westbury with decision. 
 
 "How many were there?" 
 
 "Twenty-five thousand." 
 
 The judge raised his eyebrows and looked meaningly 
 at Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "You are this man's employer, aren't you?" he con- 
 tinued. 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 343 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Ever have any occasion to find fault with him?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "How long has he worked for you?" 
 
 "Twelve years this March." 
 
 "Has he handled large sums of money?" 
 
 "Every day." 
 
 "Have you ever missed any?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 The judge leaned back. 
 
 "You may cross-examine, Mr. Tutt." 
 
 The old lawyer smiled at Mr. Westbury in a friendly 
 fashion. 
 
 "I can see by your very frank answers," said he, 
 "that you bear my client no ill will. I do not doubt 
 your desire to be absolutely sincere. I only wish to 
 ask you two questions. I think your replies will dis- 
 pose of one side of this unfortunate case. The first 
 is : Was your firm engaged very actively in dealing in 
 four and one-half per cent notes?" 
 
 Mr. Westbury was delighted at the cordiality of 
 the treatment accorded him, particularly as contrasted 
 with that extended to McFee. 
 
 "Why, no, Mr. Tutt," he replied almost effusively; 
 "we only had two or three transactions in them. In 
 fact, this is the only one we have had for several 
 weeks." 
 
 "You don't carry them on hand?" went on the 
 
 lawyer. 
 
344 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 "Oh, no," declared the witness. "We have no use 
 for them ourselves. If a customer " 
 
 "That is all I wanted to know. You had none on 
 hand at this time ?" 
 
 "Not that I know of.^' 
 
 The lawyer nodded as if satisfied. 
 
 "Now," he continued, "you are absolutely positive 
 there were twenty-five thousand idoUars in notes ?" 
 
 "Yes, absolutely!" 
 
 "Do you remember how many notes there were?" 
 asked Mr. Tutt with solemn emphasis. 
 
 "Absolutely yes," answered Mr. Westbury. "There 
 were three. Two ten-thousand-dollar notes and a five." 
 
 "You are sure there were three? Just as sure as 
 that they totaled twenty-five thousand dollars?" 
 
 "Absolutely positive." 
 
 Mr. Tutt straightened up and gave a sigh of relief. 
 
 "Then, Your Honor, I move for the defendant's 
 acquittal." 
 
 McFee almost stood up in his wrath. He knew 
 they were going to try to put something over on him. 
 
 "How so?" queried the judge. 
 
 "Kindly let me see the notes that were found on 
 the defendant's person," said Mr. Tutt to the clerk. 
 
 The lawyer took the notes which had been pinned to- 
 gether and turned each slowly, holding it up so that 
 the judge could see it. There were three — one for ten 
 thousand dollars, one for five thousand and one for one 
 thousand. Each was creased twice and all folded to- 
 gether neatly. 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 345 
 
 "These notes were found on the defendant. They 
 amount to sixteen thousand dollars. The complainant, 
 McFee, claims they are what remained after my client 
 had abstracted nine thousand dollars in notes from the 
 original twenty-five thousand. But Mr. Westbury 
 testifies that there were only three notes — two for ten 
 thousand dollars and one for five thousand. Now 
 if Mr. Westbury is correct and is not the victim of an 
 honest but natural mistake, as I claim that he is, my 
 client must have substituted for one of the ten-thou- 
 sand-dollar notes a one-thousand-dollar note. He 
 could steal the nine thousand dollars in no other way. 
 Where did he get that one-thousand-dollar note ? The 
 firm did not have any. Is it to be presumed that Pres- 
 cott had procured one in anticipation of this very pos- 
 sibility? Moreover, the folds of the one-thousand- 
 dollar note fit precisely the folds of the other notes. 
 These three notes are the only notes that Mr. McFee 
 had. He thought he had twenty-five thousand. He 
 thought he counted them, but he mistook the one-thou- 
 sand-dollar note, which was under the first ten-thou- 
 sand-dollar note, for another ten. Turning the edges 
 they look exactly alike. He told Mr. Westbury that 
 there were twenty-five thousand in notes and so im- 
 pressed Mr. Westbury with that fact that he also made 
 the same mistake. 
 
 "Prescott, being assured by both Mr. McFee and 
 and Mr. Westbury that the notes amounted to twenty- 
 five thousand, assumed their joint statement to be cor- 
 
346 TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 rect and in his hurry to give the receipt likewise mis- 
 counted them." 
 
 "It is an extraordinary illustration of self-decep- 
 tion," remarked the judge; "but the fact that there 
 were only three notes would seem to be almost conclu- 
 sive. As you say, it isn't to be presumed that Prescott 
 had a one-thousand-dollar note all ready to substitute 
 for a ten." 
 
 "Now you will understand why I wished to reserve 
 a part of my cross-examination," explained Mr. Tutt. 
 "I have subpoenaed Mr. McFee's books; they will of 
 course show exactly whether he had twenty-five or six- 
 teen thousand in four and one-half per cent notes, just 
 as they would have if he had referred to them before 
 having my client arrested. Mr. McFee, will you please 
 resume the stand?" 
 
 For an instant Cephas McFee seriously contem- 
 plated flight, but the door of the zoo was guarded by 
 a keeper, and every eye was fastened upon him. Very 
 weak in the legs he climbed again to the altar of 
 sacrifice. 
 
 "Kindly let me see the book in which you entered 
 the receipt of the notes that you placed in your vault," 
 said the lawyer sternly. 
 
 "I — I haven't it here," choked McFee. 
 
 "Why not?" thundered Mr. Tutt. 
 
 "Be-cause I didn't propose that you should go pry- 
 ing into my private affairs," glared McFee. 
 
 "Oh^— not even if that involved sending an innocent 
 
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE 347 
 
 man to prison! Your Honor, I ask for the commit- 
 ment of this witness for contempt of court." 
 
 Just beside McFee the white-whiskered baboon sud- 
 denly began to gibber ferociously, and all the beasts 
 in the menagerie started to roar in a deafening chorus. 
 
 He was lost ! He knew it. Those lawyers ! Why 
 had he ever had Prescott arrested? 
 
 "Your Honor," he chattered, "I would like to with- 
 draw the charge. There are so many possibilities of 
 mistake " 
 
 "You should have thought of that before !" shrieked 
 the baboon. "Why didn't you look at your books?" 
 
 "I thought; " 
 
 "You thought!" 
 
 "What did you find," shouted, Mr. Tutt, pointing an 
 accusing finger at the wretched McFee, "when you 
 looked at your books this morning? Tell the truth!" 
 
 McFee quaked and glanced uneasily this way and 
 that. 
 
 "Answer !" roared the baboon, towering above him. 
 "Answer, unless you want to go to jail for contempt." 
 
 Cephas McFee tottered and all but fell, while an 
 officer supported him by the shoulder. 
 
 "I found that I had only sixteen thousand," he 
 whispered faintly. 
 
 Then all the animals stood up on their hind legs and 
 waved their paws and howled, and amid the pande- 
 monium McFee heard the judge say to one of the 
 policemen: "Hold this man on a short affidavit until 
 
3*>S TUTT AND MR. TUTT 
 
 I have time to consider his case more fully," and then 
 *o the world at large: "The defendant is discharged." 
 
 From the crowd upon the benches a young woman 
 rushed forward and flung her arms hysterically about 
 Prescott. 
 
 "Oh, Jim!" she cried wildly. "Oh, Jim!" 
 
 The defendant strained her to him and patted the 
 heavy coils of her dark hair. 
 
 "Excuse her, Your Honor!" he begged shame- 
 facedly. "She's all upset!" He bent over her. 
 
 "How's Jennie ?" he demanded hoarsely. 
 
 She raised a transfigured face. 
 
 "Jennie's all right," she cried. "She didn't have 
 the pneumonia after all." 
 
 Mr. Tutt leaned over and crossed his arms familiarly 
 upon the judge's dais, while a paternal smile trans- 
 figured his gnarled old features. 
 
 "Jennie's their little girl," he explained. "And, 
 Jo, she's the greatest kid you ever saw !"